Taking your territory from $0 to high revenue growth

In this episode, we had the privilege of sitting down with Peta Sitcheff, Sales Trainer and Mindset Coach for the Med Tech Industry, with a successful career in medical devices herself. She graciously  shared her career journey and sales tips and tricks for medical device and life sciences sales professionals aiming to engage customers and achieve their goals in 2024.

Here's a sneak peek of what you can expect:

- How to build trust with customers

- What to consider in customer conversion and change

-  How to be ready when opportunity presents itself

Members of our community get 10% discount for Peta's coaching and training services, contact tara@innov8search.com for the code or more information.

Transcript

Tara Peta Podcast

[00:00:00] 

Tara: Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This is the Innov8 in Medtech podcast, a show for Medtech and life sciences professionals that aims to help you get ahead in your career. I'm your host, Tara Sharma, ex Medtech professional turned executive search headhunter. An owner of recruitment agency, Innov8 search for the MedTech, pharma and biotech industries with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare field for more tips and tricks on how to get ahead in your career.

Tara: Follow me on LinkedIn. Let's dive into this week.

Tara: So Peta, I'm really excited to have you on our Innovate in MedTech podcast. It's been a long time coming. 

Peta: Thanks for asking me to be on board. I'm looking forward to our chat. 

Tara: Absolutely. [00:01:00] So I'm going to ask you a few questions. Peta, I a lot to share with our audience. I've actually firsthand had experience of working with you years ago when you were a sales coaching and I was in a sales position in the MedTech industry.

Tara: So I know I got so much value from our time together. So really excited to share this with our community. So I'll kick off. You know, could you just share a little bit about your background, Peta, and your experience as a sales philosophy and mindset trainer for the medtech industry? 

Peta: Yeah, sure. So my background is probably not dissimilar to a lot of the listeners here.

Peta: I started in the pharmaceutical industry. Many years ago where I had my first exposure to sales and working with customers, which I really loved. And then from there, my career evolved into the medical device industry, where I worked as a territory manager within the spinal sector and within that sector.

Peta: I was there for 13 and a half years working in Melbourne, in [00:02:00] Australia, and worked with. probably about 20 of Melbourne's spinal surgeons, neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons, and loved it. It was an amazing career and I know I've said before that it was a little bit like an education in life with everything that I learned whilst I was there, both professionally and personally.

Peta: And look, it's no secret that when I left the industry back in 2017, I did so because I burnt out. And there's no doubt that. It is an incredibly rigorous industry and there are an enormous number of demands on those who work in the industry. And as a result, the resources and support that an organization provides needs to be really well considered so people are set up to succeed.

Peta: So for me leaving the industry in 2017, I needed to take a break [00:03:00] and work out what was next. And that took some time. And with that, during that time, I reflected a lot about my career and feeling so deeply connected to it. Found a lot of inspiration in the feedback I received from customers. when I left the industry.

Peta: And perhaps it was through that feedback and those words spoken that I really found myself wanting to give back to other sales professionals and work out what is it that when I was in the industry made me successful. The volume of my business was enormous and It was a huge amount of work for me and the awesome team that I worked with.

Peta: But what is it that made me successful? What is it that prompted and created those comments by those customers when I left? So I spent quite a bit of time and was quite inspired to start creating content, but also dive into the [00:04:00] learning. You know, what is it that made those connections with my customers so strong?

Peta: What enabled me to develop trust? What was my approach that prevented me from throwing a towel in and giving it up when it all became too hard? That's a brief background and from there my sales coaching business was born and some consulting as well and that really has evolved over the last number of years to What has now, and I probably realized last year with all the content that I'd created and the language I was using and the approach that I was taking and what was resonating with clients was I've created a methodology here, which is like a mindset methodology for sales professionals, and that's what I've been spending the time developing the past six months and bringing to life.

Peta: So that's where I sit at the moment. Really love [00:05:00] working with organizations and working with individuals, sales professionals, founders, business owners on supporting them in building their customer relationships and growing their business and building their sales capability. 

Tara: Well, I look forward to digging into that and finding out a little bit more about your methodology.

Tara: So, you know, obviously you've had a lot of experience in this area, Peta. You yourself were in sales and you haven't really talked about it. You're being quite humble or incredibly successful in your sales career. I know. And you've helped Numerous other people along in their sales journeys. What do you think those key skills and qualities are that you believe are really essential for a high level medtech sales professional to succeed in a very competitive landscape?

Peta: Yeah, sure. Look, I think you actually have hit the nail on the head with the first word you used there, and that is humble. Humility is incredibly important in the environment that we work within medtech. I [00:06:00] think You know, particularly you've got a number of different stakeholders that you're working within.

Peta: You're working in a high performance environment. You need to be incredibly self aware. You need to know your place and aware not only of your place within the context or environment within which you work, but also aware of, I guess, your own competencies and with humility comes not only awareness, it's acceptance of where you are.

Peta: But also a mindset that you embrace that you're constantly learning, you know, I think one of the things I hear or challenges that sales professionals, particularly within the industry are faced with is, Oh, I don't know enough. When am I ever going to know enough? And I remember feeling like that myself is when, you know, thinking, God, how will I ever have anything to say?

Peta: That's going to be meaningful [00:07:00] to a neurosurgeon. Will I ever know enough or when will I ever master this as not knowing is a little bit like a superpower. So a number of, you know, when I'm coaching people, they'll often say to me that where I'm lacking confidence is being acutely aware of what I don't know.

Peta: Consciously incompetent, as they say, and what the way I like to approach that is reframe it as, look, let's work out what you don't know. And where can you find that information and who are the people you need to be asking those questions, who more often than not are your customers. Humility and having a humble approach to the way you tackle your work with your customers and the way you tackle your business incorporates that self awareness, the acceptance of where you are, but that willingness To continually learned to seek feedback, to take on board feedback, to constantly be wanting to [00:08:00] improving, to constantly be wanting to learn.

Peta: There's not an end point. I'm not a fan of the word expert because I feel like an expert sounds like an end place, whereas particularly in a landscape like medtech, which is constantly evolving in so many different ways is it's always changing. You're never going to know everything. There's always going to be more to learn.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. No, I really hear that, Peta. So, you know, in that journey and in a sales professional's journey, a lot of the time they're trying to convert prospective customers. Some people are lucky that they might be in a big organization and there might be a lot of account management involved, but ultimately a sales professional's job is to be able to convert prospective customers.

Tara: So if somebody was trying to convert somebody from saying zero dollars revenue to a significant amount, like a million dollars revenue, what would be your advice for a rep looking to achieve this kind of [00:09:00] milestone? Any tips? 

Peta: Yeah, look, I guess another one of those qualities that you need is patience.

Peta: This is a long game and I think we can be incredibly enthusiastic about the portfolio of wonderful products and innovations that we have. However, our priority needs to be understanding our customer. So when we talk about convert, conversion means change and with change comes disruption. So what does disruption mean for our customer?

Peta: If we're talking about an end user and that end user is a surgeon, disruption for a in an operating room during a surgery is not welcomed, you know, not welcomed at all. So how often do we consider that throughout the process? I think to take an account from zero, say you're starting up in a new territory, it's a brand new customer.

Peta: You firstly need to start with yourself, [00:10:00] understand what your personal attributes are and how they can contribute to the impact you want to make within your territory and become really clear in how you articulate that with customers and how you demonstrate and you show up every day, reflecting that through your behaviors.

Peta: Connecting with your customers and then understanding what's important to them in their words. So it's less about what you have to say and more about what it is you need to learn to understand, to empathize, and to really genuinely support them. That's what's going to support you in starting to knit together those threads of trust in the relationship.

Peta: And ultimately, that's what our customers need to feel reassured that any change or any disruption that's going to come with change, that they're going to be in good hands. Customer conversion is, I think the timing of it is never when we'd [00:11:00] like it to be. And we need to remind ourselves of that. We might be here, but our customers are here.

Peta: We've got to come back and meet them where they are. And then we've got to step side by side with them moving forward. Often stepping forward relies on other things, perhaps going wrong or changes in the market, perhaps a competitive product or a competitor representative of the product that they're using might step out.

Peta: There might be some other change in the landscape. The product might come offline or be backordered, etc. So where are you placed? in terms of that next position to be able to then step up or be the first person that customer thinks of to call to fulfill their need. So sometimes it pays to focus on being the best, second best, and you have to wait for a change in the landscape until the timing's right for the customer to shift.

Tara: Yeah. Really good advice. 

Peta: I think that's really important to remember. And then lastly, when it comes to conversion, I think one of the other areas you've [00:12:00] got a really narrow window. If a customer is going to move from their current supplier to you as a supplier. And you've got a really narrow window to prove yourself.

Peta: It can be incredibly tempting. To default into wanting to pour out and prove out everything that's new, different, bright and shiny to your customer. Whereas I have an algorithm that I use for conversion, which is the first thing we do is we replicate. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: Ensure the customer replicate, look really closely at what their workflow is.

Peta: Let's say, for example, we're talking about a surgeon. Look at their workflow. Look at their habits. Those habits are going to be tattooed in their mind. Don't try to change them overnight. You won't. The best thing you can do is try to replicate it as closely as you can. And start supporting your customer in instilling or in adopting that new habit.

Peta: And then start introducing the changes [00:13:00] which differentiate you. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: So you have to be patient. We talked about humility first. Now we're talking about patience. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: You have to be patient. 

Tara: Yeah. Building trust, like you say. 

Peta: That's exactly right. So look, that's from a surgeon perspective and probably from a prosthesis perspective in an operating room.

Peta: Equally, if you're talking about capital equipment and you're talking about something more broadly, Is to take an account from 0 to 1 million, or sometimes that can be 3 to 5 million for some of the enormous capital sales that are done out there. You need to understand your landscape. And sometimes, as a MedTech representative, it's up to us to create the picture, to create the vision.

Peta: And join the dots for our customer and then lead them along the way. They don't know what they don't know. So they won't know the breadth, for example, they might know your product, but do they really understand the breadth of support? And what does that look like? A support by way of a service contract isn't just what's on paper.[00:14:00] 

Peta: It's well, who are the people and what are the resources? And what about those in demand times is there breadth and depth there to support? our customers, our surgeons, our hospital, when they're utilizing your products. So from a capital perspective, if you can create that picture, you can understand the need, you can create that vision and then work with every single stakeholder from might be the board to the C suite, to the operating suite, to the surgeon and the surgical staff.

Peta: And then it's up to you to nudge them each understand each of their perspectives. What's important to them and why it matters in their words and bring them along for the ride, I should say. 

Tara: !Yeah, absolutely. It's complex. 

Peta: It's really complex and you have to lead your customer. I think that was one of my biggest lessons after my time in medtech is your customer doesn't know what they don't know.

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: If you can help them know you [00:15:00] and understand your relationship, they're going to have a lot more trust in you leading them. in terms of where they'd like to go. 

Tara: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Very good advice, Pete. Thank you. Thanks for breaking that down. With that, a lot of what you've talked about there is building that trust and building relationships and like you say, it's long term. We're not looking for quick wins here. Can you share some effective strategies for building and maintaining strong long term relationships with the healthcare institutions, the clinicians themselves and decision makers in the medtech sector? 

Peta: Yeah, again, I think a lot of this comes down to patience. Being patient, being thorough, being present, but present in not an annoying way and being very intentional with what you're doing. Understand the small wins. I think it's very easy to focus on the big audacious goals, yet we want to win that tender. Well, [00:16:00] that's fine, but how much of that really is within your control?

Peta: How can you break it down and understand? What gains are relevant, worthwhile, and indicative of success, I think is the real key there. I think at the heart of every customer relationship we have is trust. Trust affords us an enormous amount. It affords us loyalty. It affords us. It affords us so much, yet how often do we focus on building trust day to day?

Peta: There's a great trust equation, which has been out for an enormously long time from a fabulous book called The Trusted Advisor. I think you've heard me talk about it. I come back to that a lot because reliability plus credibility plus intimacy, which is share what's only ours to share. Over self orientation is a really simple way to understand how you can reflect trust or build trust, [00:17:00] foster trust, I should say, through your daily behaviors with your customer.

Peta: And that's one of the first exercises I get a lot of my coaching clients to do is one of the fastest ways that we can look at building trust with a customer is to focus on them rather than focus on ourselves. So often, we'll go into an appointment with a list of things we want to say. What if we flip that around and focused on what are the things we need to learn?

Peta: So what are the questions I need to ask? So if you're planning with questions, going in to have a conversation with a customer, automatically your mindset shifts the orientation onto them. Reduces your self orientation. Reduce the denominator, build the trust, so to speak. One of the other ways and strategies I like to use to foster trust with a customer relationship and to accelerate its development is through customer service, but mapping out a common customer experience.

Peta: So that experience reflects behaviors that foster trust. [00:18:00] So, for example, if you're a medtech representative and you're for prosthesis and you're working within an operating room, a really common customer experience is going to be servicing a surgery with your equipment. Map out that process. And really interrogate the process for your own behaviors.

Peta: Think about what are my behaviors and are all of my behaviors, are all of my behaviors fostering trust with that customer? Am I communicating as well as I can be communicating? I've been reliable. Am I delivering on the things I say I'm going to be delivering? Am I really preparing and hearing what the customer is saying and they need for this specific case?

Peta: Or am I making assumptions based on what we've already done? Now, we know that no surgery is ever the same. Assumptions are earplugs, as I like to say. So, interrogate your customer experience or your own behaviors, I should say, within the framework of your [00:19:00] customer experience. Because That is what your customer is seeing on a regular basis.

Peta: It's being replicated. It's repetitive. It's what they're going to know. It's what their habits are based around. And I guarantee that if someone maps out almost 200 percent of the time, if I have someone map out a customer experience workflow, we will find at least a dozen areas or blind spots in the customer's Where we can improve or change a behavior or evolve a behavior to better foster trust.

Tara: That's such a good idea. I love that. And like you say, it's not just in that kind of theatre and prosthesis space. It can be across any kind of service that you're providing across any area. So that's a really useful exercise. Peta, in the MedTech industry, as we talked about, we know that innovation is constant, there's changes and improvements all the time. How [00:20:00] do you think sales professionals can stay up to date with the latest advancements in technology and what's happening in the industry, healthcare, and really incorporate them into their sales strategies? 

Peta: Yeah, look, in an industry that is innovating so rapidly, it's very easy to stay, to keep your focus narrow and stay focused on what only you have in your bag or what only you can offer. We know we need to think more broadly than that. We need to understand the changes that are happening in the market. Equally, I like to consider innovation from a customer perspective. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: Be having that conversation about market innovations with that customer constantly and understand what innovation means to the customer because it's one thing to have all these bright and shiny new tools in your toolkit and this great new equipment world class however if a [00:21:00] customer is not confident about using it they're not confident about changing their technique if they don't see the benefit For their patients, they're not going to use it.

Peta: So I think when it comes to innovation is there needs to be a balance in knowledge here. And that balance is from a product and market perspective and the equipment perspective. And then there is the customer perspective, which I would suggest is more important. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: We've seen new innovations come to market and then get withdrawn because of complications down the track.

Peta: The long term data at that point. May not have illustrated issues with a particular product, and it has done as more long term data has come to light or perhaps the process, the surgical technique or workflow. Wasn't as easy for the end user, the surgeon to adopt and that led to more errors. [00:22:00] Absolutely.

Peta: So I think from an innovative perspective, you need to consider constantly that balanced approach and that customer perspective. And with that too, is what is going to support that customer with their decision making, what's going to support that customer through a change process. How do your customers like to make decisions?

Peta: I find that's a question which often a lot of clients haven't thought about. We assume they all make decisions the same way. However, they don't. And I think that's really important to consider when it comes to innovation. We need to understand what that means. And then, of course, there is the research and scientific evidence to back up and validate. the introduction of that change. 

Tara: Yeah. And like you say, we're there because of the patients, the surgeons, the clinicians, the hospitals are there for patients and patient outcomes. Everything always has to have that front and [00:23:00] center and that needs to be kind of what shapes everything that we do.

Peta: Absolutely. If you keep the patient front and center constantly in your conversation with a customer, you can rarely go wrong. If you keep the patient front and center in your decision making. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: You can't go wrong and a really simple example of that and I have no doubt there are going to be a number of people listening to this podcast who are going to understand exactly what I'm about to say and that is.

Peta: You've got three surgeries taking place at the same time. Every one of those surgeons and operating teams wants you in the room, but there's only one of you. And innovation hasn't got so far, it hasn't evolved that much where it can clone us, yet.

Peta: How do you make a decision on where to be and at the time and how do you communicate that with each of those surgeons? You can make the decision based on the patient, which patient needs you most, perhaps which surgeon needs more support to get the best outcome for the patient. And if you communicate it around in the [00:24:00] context of the patient, there'll be few people who'll argue with you.

Tara: Yeah, I like that piece. I think that's very good. And I think that will resonate with a lot of the listeners. It will. It's sending me back, I remember it. So obviously communication is huge in what we do and in sales, but in building trust, in customer support, all of those sorts of things. What role do you think effective communication plays in MedTech sales, particularly when dealing with complex medical equipment, conditions, solutions, and any tips, can people improve their communication skills? 

Peta: Yeah, sure. I feel really passionately about this one because I just think communication is our means to connection and the way we communicate is a means of fostering trust. We need to really think about the language that we use and how we communicate.

Peta: There's lots of different elements that we can consider when it comes to communication, and [00:25:00] it's a necessity, and it's a tool. We think of, consider communication as a tool. There's our day to day communication from an instructional perspective that we have, particularly around our customer experience and customer service.

Peta: And those who've worked with me will know that I separate customer service from customer engagement and those conversations. So let's take communication from a customer service perspective. How are we communicating? What information are we communicating? Who are we communicating to? Are we communicating in a way?

Peta: That holds our customer to account, which I think is incredibly important, particularly in an environment where you've got so much going on in your own brain. I think it's really important to find the courage to also hold your customer to account and communication is a means and a tool to do so.

Peta: Communicating clearly, how are you crafting your communication? What are the words you are using? What are the words you aren't using? So there's an enormous [00:26:00] amount of communication from a customer experience perspective and then communication from a customer engagement perspective and engagement for me, it's more the commercial business orientated discussion around value and that is where we are focusing more on understanding what the customer, what's important to the customer in their words and why it matters in their word.

Tara: You've said that a few times, haven't you, in their words? 

Peta: I'll always say in their words, and I ask that a lot when I'm working with clients because often I'll hear an answer where I'll say, Oh, so what's important to your customer reliability. Okay. Break that down for me. It's like when you say to somebody, how do you want to be described in an industry professional?

Peta: What does professional mean? Yeah. Big words need to be broken down into behaviors. So, communication from an engagement piece, I touched on a little bit earlier in [00:27:00] one of the earlier questions I answered around planning with questions, for example. So, how do we set up communication in conversation? Again, to foster trust, to be clear with our messaging, to have effective conversations, which gives us information we can use and information that we can use to make effective decisions, to understand what we should lead our customer to next.

Peta: What is it I want to get out of a conversation? What's the outcome I want? What's the information I need? What are the questions I need to ask to get that information? We need to have a purpose for a conversation to get that outcome that we want to understand how that conversation is going to continue.

Peta: So crafting our communication in a way where our conversation with a customer is cooperative and continuous is really important to keep the momentum going [00:28:00] in the sales process. Absolutely. A common example, which I'm sure again, people will be familiar with, is I need to make contact with a customer. I haven't seen this customer before.

Peta: They don't know me. I'll send them an email. The chances of that email being noticed in a cluttered inbox are minimal, let alone being opened. And then after it's opened, it has to be read and then it has to be understood. And then if you're lucky, maybe actioned. The call to action. 

Tara: Actually responded to. Yeah, 

Peta: Correct so if you're sitting in the office of which there's never any customers, if you're sitting in the office behind a laptop thinking, I feel really good about myself, I've sent out six emails. How effective is that going to be? And will you be feeling as good about yourself in two weeks time when you've got no response?

Tara: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Peta: So one of the things I like to work through with clients is a checklist with communication and coming up with almost like a recipe, if you like, or an algorithm of [00:29:00] communication that you can use. So you feel empowered constantly and in control of the conversation. So if a sales leader or the CEO or the president of your organization turned around and said, Tell me, where is customer?

Peta: The surgeon XYZ at, you can go, Oh yes, this is what the product they're using at the time. This is what the conversation looks like right now. And this is how I'm going to be following that up in two weeks time, because you're constantly empowered and you're utilizing communication as a tool. It is a tool.

Tara: Great advice. Okay. So Peta, given the example we used earlier, brand new territory, brand new customer and trying to take them on this journey to conversion from say, I'm just using arbitrary numbers and zero to a million. Can you give me some examples of what your process would be with everything you've talked about so far, including kind of having knowledge about that customer and their landscape?

Tara: Getting that initial interaction or meeting or whatever it might happen. And then the sorts of questions you will have planned [00:30:00] and asked. Can you just give me some examples of that? So people have got some actionable takeaways from today. 

Peta: Sure. So I'm planning to meet a customer for the first time. Priority for me is always going to be connecting with the person that's in front of me. And that will be not connecting with their job title or where they work, but connecting with the person. So asking them a little bit about themselves. and how long it is they've been perhaps working where they are.

Peta: What is it that got them into the industry in the first place? So getting below the intellectual layer, because so many of us day to day, we spend our time in the intellectual layer. We actually want to get into the emotional layer. That's where decisions are made because it's about how we make people feel or how people feel about decisions that they've made, if you like.

Peta: So first and foremost, it's going to be questions on that more personable level and then keeping the line [00:31:00] of questioning really broad as you start navigating the conversation more specifically down a path that's relevant to your role and what your role could potentially be in their professional world.

Peta: So they might be questions about, specifically, again, and we mentioned this a little bit earlier, Tara is talking about keeping the patient front and centre. So for example, what is most important for our surgeon? It's going to be considering the patient. What are the patients that they like to see?

Peta: What are the operations that you love to do? What do you find really challenging? How do you work with challenging patients? What compromises your outcomes? One of the other things you might notice as I'm articulating these questions is, I, you start my questions with the words what and how. Now they are what we'd call calibrated questions.

Peta: And calibrated questions give us information we can use. [00:32:00] It's a little bit like an example that I use often when I'm teaching is why did you have a bad day? Oh, I just had a crap day. It was terrible. You get an emotional superficial response. Whereas if you reframe that question and said, what is it that happened today to make it a bad day?

Peta: It's, Oh my goodness. I had a patient come in that was much more complex. There wasn't enough time booked. It threw me out an extra 45 minutes. All of my other patients were late. I was late getting into surgery. That meant my whole list was late. That then meant I was late for my daughter's music concert.

Peta: The whole day was just terrible. The family were mad at me. Okay. If you have information, then you can use, you start tapping into what it is that's really important as opposed to getting a superficial emotional response, more open ended response. Yeah, exactly. [00:33:00] So from a question perspective is planning for a conversation with questions is one thing, then what are the types of questions and how do you structure your questions in a way where you get information you can use?

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: We spend so much time wanting to prove how much we know, whereas we need to understand and we need to position our information in a way that's relevant to the customer that's in front of us. And the only way that we can determine relevance is if we've got useful information. So I have a tool I like to use with a series of questions, customer front and center, and you can use it if a customer is a surgeon or in the C suite or is a founder or a business owner.

Peta: And there's a whole series of questions around it. And I'll often sit down with a client and they say, no, I know my customer really well, I've been working with them for four years and yeah, the business is great. It's pretty stagnant, but I'm happy with what I'm getting. I'm like, okay, well let's answer these questions.

Peta: And the client might be able to answer the first couple [00:34:00] really well. And all of a sudden it's, Oh, actually I'm not sure how my customer makes decisions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure what risk means to my customer. I've never really asked them that question. Can I ask them that? I'm like, yeah, why not? Yeah.

Peta: Of course you can. You can ask any question, respectfully. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the mindset, Tara. It's going in thinking, how well do I really understand this? And so often someone will say to me, I've always wondered this about my customer and I'm just really not sure what to do next. This is a question I've got and my response is always, well, who's the best person to answer that question? My customer. Have you asked them the question yet? What's stopping you? Nothing. Okay, next thing on your list, when you're sitting there thinking, I don't know where to go next with this customer. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: I can very easily come up with your next steps by asking you a few questions about how much you understand about them.

Tara: Yeah, absolutely. 

Peta: And that [00:35:00] is what building successful customer relationships in medtech. There's no finish line. They constantly evolve. They evolve as the relationships evolve. They evolve as You evolve as people, they evolve as the market evolves, and the landscape evolves, and you need to keep it moving.

Peta: That's your role as a sales professional is to keep the ball in the air or keep the fire stoked, if you will. So when you start thinking about it, as a journey and you start focusing on your effort, the effort that you make, that's within your control. And the communication questioning is a great tool to support you in doing so.

Tara: Absolutely. And like you say, it's in taking that information that you've just learned when they do want something like that, coming away, stopping, reflecting, and thinking about that next interaction and how you can use what you've learned and how that's relevant to what you [00:36:00] actually can offer and support this person.

Tara: So yeah, I love that. And you are the queen of questions. I remember working with you. 

Peta: Love a good question. That's what coaching is, right? 

Tara: Absolutely. That's amazing. That's right. So Peta, you know, handling objections, overcoming resistance is an everyday occurrence and challenge in sales. Can you share some specific techniques or frameworks that some of our community could actually use to address objections effectively?

Peta: Yeah, it's, I feel like the word objections is stale, is antiquated and it is a reality, right? We get pushback from customers. We give to everybody listening here. When did you last give pushback to somebody who asked something of you? And what did that mean? So it can mean many things. I like [00:37:00] to reframe objections because so often they're called barriers.

Peta: What are the barriers and barriers sound like big concrete pylons that are put between you and your customer and you're never going to smash through. Negative. It's negative and it's fixed. It's unchangeable. The reality is that when we get pushback on a request that we've made, or perhaps we get rejection from a customer, which is a commonality for sales just in life really, is it's that person putting up a boundary and that boundary can mean many things.

Peta: We can make an assumption that it's, they don't like what I have. They don't like me. They don't want what I have. Lots of different things. So we can make that assumption. However, that's our mind creating a story based on what it's heard or we can consider it. Okay. This customer has put a boundary in place.

Peta: It [00:38:00] could mean many things. Perhaps what I need to do is establish some terms and conditions for the relationship. So I know how to work here. Reframing it like that enables you to keep Touch points moving forward. So, for example, yes, show me what you've got, you show them what you have. I'm really happy with what I'm using.

Peta: Okay, I understand that. However, as my role, I'm here to look after you and I represent our organization. We often receive updated information or have engagement tools or have initiatives that we might be bringing to market. Are you happy to receive that information? How would you like to receive that information?

Peta: Focusing on the how you then establish some sort of working terms where you can keep a touch point going with that customer. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: so it becomes a boundary. It might be okay, the customer might say you've got this part [00:39:00] of my business. but not this part of my business. Okay. So with what I do have, how can I prove myself out and build trust, develop the relationship so that when there's some sort of shift in the market and perhaps this customer is open to buying, they consider me the next cab off the rank.

Peta: So sometimes we've got to accept that a situation is where it is and a customer might object to things for a whole number of reasons. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: Because they just may not even be ready to have the conversation yet. 

Tara: Yeah. It's about them. 

Peta: It's about them. It's constantly about them. So I like to reframe an objection.

Peta: Instead of thinking it as a barrier, it becomes a boundary that we can work with. And our aim is on, our objective is to focus on keeping the momentum going. Focus on the gains not the end goal. The goal sets our [00:40:00] direction, but it's our effort and progress in the small gains that's actually going to get us there.

Peta: We don't set that pace. Our customer sets that pace. 

Tara: Yes. 

Peta: Now, sometimes it might be that a customer makes an objection, well, I've tried that and this went wrong, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And they just let off steam and they don't want to hear it. That's fine. They may not be ready for the information that you have to hear the information or digest the information.

Peta: They also may not be ready. To accept that, well, perhaps they weren't using something the right way and that led to a complication. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: I think it's really important. Again, this comes down to bring your customers voice to the table, understand their perspective, because particularly in the instance of healthcare and in surgery specifically, you don't know what's happened in that customer's day.

Peta: You don't know the class conversation that they had. 

Tara: Yeah, 

Peta: you need to [00:41:00] constantly factor that in. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: And assess the conversations that you're having, you know, read the person in front of you. Not only the words they're speaking, read their body language, just have a look at what's going on around them.

Peta: Definitely. So an objection can happen for lots of different reasons and it can mean lots of different things. So rather than consider it a barrier, think of it as a boundary that's set by the customer. If you can establish some sort of terms to work with moving forward, that'll keep your momentum going.

Tara: Love that Peta. That's really good advice. You know, gosh, I can think of so many scenarios like that. And yeah, even ones for my business now. So that's fantastic. Peta, you know, as a trainer and a coach yourself, what methods or resources do you recommend for people in the industry for their ongoing professional development and to keep enhancing their skills in MedTech?

Peta: It's interesting. I think looking at the sales training [00:42:00] landscape, there's a way a lot of us have been. taught to sell. And I think a lot of it has been based on old techniques and have been based on achievement and winning and achieving our goals. And I think what we're realizing now, and if you look at some of the more contemporary neuroscience research that's out there, is we're learning that there's also a consideration and you'll know Tara, I'm incredibly passionate about mental health, wellbeing, and particularly in preventing burnout.

Peta: so much for joining us today, and we'll see you next time. Realistically, that's what ended my career at the time in the industry. And I speak openly about that because I'm incredibly passionate about preventing other people from going through the same experience. It's such a rewarding career and a great industry to work in that you can have a great career in so many different roles and contribute in so many different ways.

Peta: So long as you don't burn out. Yeah, that's right. So I think [00:43:00] from a sales training perspective is, I think it's important to consider your development from the perspective of professional development and personal development, balance out the two from a professional development perspective, there's always going to be procedural information and product information you need to know.

Peta: And there are, of course, competencies that you need to demonstrate to the Be credible and we also have to accept that we're working in a high stakes environment. So, from a professional development perspective, all of that content information is incredibly important. I think. Also, we were talking before about the importance about communication, utilizing communication as a tool is incredibly important.

Peta: One of the roles that you have as a representative within the medtech industry, particularly if you're working within the operating room and prosthesis, is you need to be comfortable speaking in front of people. You need to be able to project, you need to be able to articulate [00:44:00] well. You need to be heard.

Peta: You need for people to be confident in what you're saying. All of that can form a part of your professional development. Absolutely. Yeah. And from, I touched before, I mentioned really briefly around what the more updated research is demonstrating is to get the best out of ourselves within the MedTech industry.

Peta: We need to focus on what's in our control. And I think that's where sales training does need to evolve in terms of, and I think it is evolving, focusing on what's in our control, which is our effort, our progress. frameworks we use and also then understanding what is the value that we bring to our business and what tools do we have in the toolbox that is or treasure chest that is our collective or that are our collective personal attributes and understanding how to identify them, define [00:45:00] them, articulate them and use them day to day to maintain.

Peta: Your motivation because motivation goes up and down to enhance your capability in your role as a sales professional. or a service professional. 

Tara: Yeah. 

Peta: So I think that balance between personal development and professional development, I think more and more organizations are bridging that. I think there needs to be that consideration.

Peta: We don't always, I work with a number of people who work for big organizations that just don't get the support that they need. If you're not getting the support you need from your organization, go out and see what other options are out there. Yeah. Whether it's something you invest in yourself or it's something that you take to an organization.

Peta: Sometimes they don't want to do the work. They haven't got the resource in a sales training department to do the work. So if you go out there and you find something, take it to them, build a case. Can they sponsor you? 

Tara: Absolutely. That's right. 

Peta: You know, equally We don't always find 

Peta: inspiration. We can't control who our [00:46:00] direct leader is, whether it's a leader or a title of a manager.

Peta: We don't always find inspiration in our leader. That is a day to day reality. So where else can you go? Do you actively seek mentors to work with from within your organization or outside of your organization? If that's a challenge, then, and there's coaching. Coaching will accelerate any development.

Tara: Absolutely. 

Peta: I think every single day, and if you are particularly after or like working one on one with somebody and building that relationship and knowing you've got someone in that, in your corner. Coaching is a fabulous tool. It's something I wish I had. I was a sales professional in the industry. Just someone who I knew was in my corner who also could hold me to account and just be keep an eye on a few things.

Peta: Yeah, really important. 

Tara: So important. It really is. I think having worked with yourself and a number of coaches, it just [00:47:00] accelerates, you know, what you can't see yourself, your own development. And it, yeah, it makes you feel held and supported. And suddenly you're achieving things you didn't think you could achieve in a way that's sustainable for you.

Tara: So I completely agree. And I think we do have a lot of conversations with people. It's not. only the responsibility of your organization to develop you. It's your own responsibility too. And okay, there's coaches and that costs money, but there's so many podcasts, there's so many books, there's mentors, there's groups.

Tara: People can invest in their own coaching too. It will make a difference in their own life and career. So I'm completely with you there. 

Peta: Absolutely. Learning is one of the core needs that our brain has, and it's up to us. We're talking about customers. How do our customers make decisions? Well, how do we make decisions?

Peta: How do we learn best? Everybody is different. And you have to take responsibility for that yourself. And if it's information that you can seek yourself, you can go out and find yourself, that's one thing. If [00:48:00] it's information that has to come from your company, because it's product specific or whatever it might be, well then there will be resources within your organization to go and sort that and people to ask.

Peta: And you have to ask the question. 

Tara: That's it. You've got to take responsibility and people will support you. We see great things out there from the companies that they really do support people in personal and professional development. Lastly, people have got a bit of a taste of how you work, Peta, but I'd just like to delve into that a little bit.

Tara: Cause we do get a lot of inquiries from people asking about training and coaching. Could you just highlight and give people a bit of an overview of what you offer from a training and coaching perspective that could really benefit that high level people looking to become high level MedTech professionals in our community.

Peta: From a sales training and coaching perspective, as I said, at the very start of our chat, what has evolved for me over the last five or six years has been a methodology, I guess, that I probably didn't realize at the time that there was this [00:49:00] sequence. That I was continually following that was really resonating with clients.

Peta: And so start or throughout last year, 2023, I more formally put that information together. I've formed a course. However, when I say that I call it a methodology. Because it can be presented in so many ways. So based on my experience, what I've learned through my research, which is vast, I've really tried to design a way to support sales professionals, which touches on both the personal development and the professional development side of things, my own burnout experience in mind, and my own really focusing also on.

Peta: Mental health and considering mental health, because again, working in the sales profession, as in any profession, I think we can be incredibly vulnerable to or [00:50:00] susceptible to some pretty aggressive emotional roller coasters at times. 

Tara: Absolutely. Champagne and razor blades, they call it in recruitment, but certainly in Medtech.

Peta: That's it. High stakes. That's it. So from a methodology perspective, you know, what I've realized is this is a mindset. This is the way that it's the way I approach sales. It's the way I approach customer relationships, and it's the way I approach developing people. And the way I approach developing people, as I've alluded to, is always focus on what's in your control, the outcome, the goal, sales target, that'll set the direction.

Peta: But it's not within your control. There are too many factors that can impact that, that you've got no say over. And I think we all learned that through COVID and lockdowns, no control over that. What we can control is the effort and the progress we're making, particularly around the evolving customer relationship.

Peta: [00:51:00] So the methodology I came up with is all about maintaining momentum. And the importance of maintaining momentum in our efforts, which is a way that we can assess the progress we make in the developing our customer relationship or trust within that customer relationship, but particularly focusing on what are three factors that commonly stall the developing customer relationship and they are our motivation.

Peta: Engagement and communication when either of those three things stall generally the developing customer relationship does too. So what are processes for each and tools that we can put in place and use to help keep that progress going. And that's the philosophy behind everything I do. And I teach from a sales perspective is putting the customer relationship at the heart of it and focusing on what's best for them.

Peta: Within your control and building capability around that. [00:52:00] Now, whether that is through one on one coaching or whether that is through team coaching or content's delivered as a masterclass, I've also, at the end of last year, created an online program where all of this is now in a six month program or course where the content is released fortnightly.

Peta: And it's hosted by me and supported with coaching, whether it's from a group perspective or an individual perspective. So some of the feedback I had was sales training is great. Masterclasses are great. However, they're one off. 

Tara: Yeah, that's right. 

Peta: How do you pull people to account for what it is that they've learned putting in place?

Peta: Whereas with six months continual training and development, that language constantly being used and following a process, which is all. Interconnected, you start instilling new habits throughout that period of time and you're held to account through coaching throughout. [00:53:00] 

Tara: That's great. I've had a look at the content. Obviously, I haven't myself done your course. I've worked with you as a coach, had a look at this content. It's absolutely fantastic. So really excited for people to get their eyes on that. Peta, thank you so much for being with us today. And sharing some of your pearls of wisdom and yes, hopefully you don't mind if I connect you with people as they reach out and ask to know more, but everybody give Peta a follow on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Tara: You always release loads of really good tips and advice and thank you so much for being with us today. 

Peta: Pleasure. Thanks heaps Tara. Thanks everyone.