The medical device sales industry is developing rapidly with a growth rate of 14 to 15% every year. However, the problem of aging medical device sales skills and marketing models has gradually surfaced. Improving the skills of sales staff has become a problem for CEOs. More and more topics.
The medical device industry is knowledge-intensive and capital-intensive, so the barriers to entry are high. However, it has still attracted a large amount of capital in recent years. The huge profits cannot but be said to be a very tempting reason. . However, the product's high price, long service life, and strict customer requirements have posed many problems to the sales staff and poured countless basins of cold water on them. What to do and whether to continue doing it may be questions they have been asking. The answer, of course, is to keep going. The trick is to stick with it. The following are sales tips compiled from a comparison of hospital equipment and household equipment for reference by confused medical device sales staff.
Let me mention it again. To win the medical device market, it is impossible to win quickly. The only way is to fight a protracted war. On this road, it is difficult for salespeople to succeed without good psychological quality, professional knowledge and sales skills.
■ Analyze the psychology of various customers
Currently, the sales methods of medical devices on the market can be roughly divided into three types: First, sales at designated or non-fixed points in the community, commonly known as "errand sales" . The second type is conference marketing, which can be divided into single conference marketing type and compound conference marketing type. At present, the proportion of single-type conference marketing is already low, and the "community store conference marketing" model is more common. Because of the increased pre-screening process, the input-output ratio of conference marketing has improved, but the weakness of high marketing costs is also obvious. The third is the "experience center" model. Compared with conference marketing, it is characterized by a long purchase cycle and higher customer satisfaction.
After understanding the above basic situation, we must also understand the psychology of different consumers. Take household medical devices as an example. The reason why ordinary consumers invest in medical devices is to protect their health. And if they fail to achieve this goal, they will be blamed by other family members. If this happens, it will be very detrimental to the establishment of product brands and the formation of reputation.
For medical institutions, they are usually willing to place orders as long as they believe they can make profits within a short period of time (i.e., the payback period). It is more difficult to obtain orders for administrative equipment. This is because many hospitals have this understanding: purchasing production equipment can make money; purchasing office equipment only makes employees more comfortable and will not be of great benefit to the hospital. Therefore, hospitals do not pay much attention to purchasing management equipment. Approval of sexual equipment is often subject to stricter controls.
Consumers pay more attention to the use value of the product when purchasing medical devices, while consumers purchasing daily necessities may consider more issues such as the image and taste of the product. Although price is also an important factor in medical device sales, the first factor is definitely quality. Because consumers all have this understanding - no matter how cheap something is, it is "in vain" to improve the quality of life if it cannot eliminate the pain.
For medical institutions, quality is also the first factor to consider. Because product quality is directly related to the health and even life of patients. Without this foundation, the normal operation of the hospital is impossible. When purchasing equipment, leaders are also very concerned about the equipment's operating costs, durability, reliability and after-sales service. Only when these factors can meet the hospital's requirements will they consider purchasing.
Salespeople should work according to the above psychological characteristics. Taking management equipment as an example, it can be promoted as "production equipment", focusing on the product's ability to improve efficiency, and letting buyers clearly understand how the product reduces the service costs (time and labor costs) of medical institutions. Thereby persuading the other party to finally purchase. When facing home users, more emphasis should be placed on the health care functions, convenience and speed of its products.
■ Improve personal psychological quality
Generally speaking, the transaction volume of medical equipment is several times that of daily consumer goods. It is common for a medical device salesperson to sign a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it is not uncommon for a business to be worth millions of dollars.
Huge numbers certainly mean profits, but from another perspective, the activities of medical device salespeople involve huge amounts of money and bear extremely heavy responsibilities. They should spend enough time and energy to study the business.
Working in this environment, some novice medical device salespeople feel heavy mental pressure and feel "out of breath". A young man selling X-ray machines just received a shopping plan worth more than 3 million yuan from a large hospital. Since he had no similar experience in the past, he could not sleep at night, worried all day long that he would not be able to complete the task, and could not even live a normal life calmly. The final result was that due to poor mental state, failure to communicate effectively, the business was not concluded.
In reality, this kind of thing often happens to novices. In fact, there is a Jewish saying: "Little children - small problems; big children - big problems", which means that people should choose different paths based on their own personality and psychological characteristics. If you want to play a "big role" in the market, you must first weigh your own psychological endurance and various strengths. What if it can't improve personal? Medical device sales too.
■ Compete for endurance and win the long-distance race
The procurement procedures for medical devices vary according to different management methods, depending on the size and management focus of the hospital. Generally speaking, the request may be made by the technical department or the relevant physician and then handed over to the purchasing department. If the price of purchased products exceeds the norm, top leadership may intervene to make the final decision.
Even in a small company, the power to purchase all important materials is in the hands of the boss, but in the decision-making process, the boss is more or less influenced by his subordinates. For example, if a hospital wants to purchase a photometer, although the final decision lies with the boss, which brand and model of product should be purchased? At this time, the photometer's advice may play a big role, because he uses this kind of machine the most and has the most say. It can be seen that medical device salespeople usually face a complex situation and often need to deal with all kinds of people. They must consider the overall situation, find the key links of the work, and make breakthroughs before they can finally complete the business.
Some people say that in the medical device market, only those with "connections" can have customers. This conclusion may be debatable, but it also reminds us that sales work is not just as simple as "selling things." When target customers have established good relationships with competitors, whether you can get involved is the starting point for all subsequent work; conversely, once you have established long-term relationships with customers and can continue to provide them with good follow-up services, It's like erecting a strong barrier to block the invasion of competitors.
The sales director of a certain photometric factory once spent two full years before entering a hospital. In order to open up this customer, he worked hard, visited again and again, and made suggestions on product maintenance and other aspects from time to time. He said, I never expect new salespeople to achieve anything in their first year. I just want them to be familiar with the product, be prepared, and be in constant contact with customers.
Indeed, negotiations for medical device transactions can sometimes last for long periods of time, even years. Therefore, the work model of quick success and quick profit is not suitable for the medical device field.
■ Service first is no child’s play
Service has become one of the themes of current business competition, especially for the medical device industry. It’s no exaggeration to say that in many cases, the ability to repair quickly can be the main reason for doing business. If after purchasing a product, problems often occur during use, and after problems occur, it is difficult to find the necessary parts and manpower for immediate repairs - this kind of thing will seriously affect the relationship between the buyer and seller of the medical device.
In our country, large and medium-sized hospitals are extremely busy with daily work, and their equipment is often overloaded. Many hospitals have said that in order to obtain timely maintenance services, they would rather spend more money and even purchase some maintenance parts to keep in stock. This shows how important the after-sales service of medical devices is. For medical device salespeople, getting an order is just the beginning of their work. The success of a medical device salesperson depends largely on the subsequent service work.
Therefore, medical device salespeople should do every after-sales job effectively, especially when dealing with the problems of large customers, and must not lose the big for the small.
■ Keep an eye out for opportunities
It should be known that the demand for medical devices is completely dominated by consumer demand. In the final analysis, the demand for medical devices is derived from consumer demand. No one will buy a medical device due to psychological factors such as collection, following trends, and love. Therefore, we say that the total demand for medical equipment cannot be scalable.
Budget constraints are an inevitable problem for medical device salespeople. If the purchase funds for the products you sell have been included in the budget, that's great; if not, you are in trouble. , because it is difficult to pass a budget reapply.
Savvy executives at large companies know that any change in the internal operating order has the potential to cause chaos, and that new products or methods can disrupt the original operating order. But if the client has a new leader, this might be a good opportunity to step in. The ability to find and seize these opportunities requires salespeople to pay close attention to them and truly understand the customer's internal situation.