7 Tips for Creating Success in Your New Medical Sales Role

You've accepted a new medical sales role. Congratulations!

Now comes the challenge of turning a successful interview process into a successful start with your new employer.

Even if you have years of medical sales experience, starting with a new company means learning new products, customers, systems and ways of working. You may also be taking over an unfamiliar territory, moving into a different therapy area or selling to a completely new group of healthcare professionals.

You do not need to prove everything in your first few weeks. A strong start is about learning quickly, building the right relationships and understanding where your efforts will have the greatest impact.

Here are seven ways to set yourself up for success in your new medical sales role.

1. Understand What Success Looks Like

One of your first priorities should be understanding exactly what your new employer expects from you.

Sales targets will obviously matter, but they are unlikely to be the only measure of success.

Find out what your manager expects you to achieve in your first three, six and twelve months. Depending on the role, early priorities could include completing product training, developing clinical knowledge, meeting key customers, understanding your territory, identifying new opportunities or building a pipeline.

Ask how your performance will be measured and which KPIs matter most.

It is also useful to understand the wider objectives of the business. Is the company trying to grow market share, launch a new product, enter new accounts or strengthen existing customer relationships?

The clearer you are about what success looks like, the easier it will be to focus your time in the right places.

2. Learn the Product and Clinical Environment

Product knowledge is particularly important in medical sales.

Your customers may be clinicians who use the products every day, so you need to develop enough knowledge to have credible conversations and answer questions confidently.

Learn not only what your products do, but where and why they are used. Understand the relevant procedures, clinical pathways, evidence and terminology, as well as the benefits and limitations of your products.

Get to know the competition too. Which alternatives are your customers currently using? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Why might somebody choose your solution instead?

Depending on your role, spend time with clinical specialists, product managers and experienced sales colleagues. If you have opportunities to observe procedures or see your products being used in practice, make the most of them.

You do not need to know everything immediately. What matters is being curious, asking questions and steadily building your expertise.

3. Get to Know Your Territory and Accounts

Before rushing to make changes, understand what you have inherited.

Look at the sales history for your territory. Which accounts are performing well? Where has business declined? Which customers have potential for growth? Are there opportunities that have been sitting in the pipeline for some time?

Find out about previous relationships too.

A customer who appears to be a straightforward prospect on a CRM system may have years of history with the business that you need to understand before approaching them.

Start mapping the people who influence purchasing decisions within your key accounts. Depending on what you sell, this could include clinicians, department managers, procurement teams, finance, senior management and other stakeholders.

The better you understand the territory, the easier it becomes to prioritise where your time will have the greatest impact.

4. Build Relationships Internally as Well as Externally

Your customer relationships are important, but so are the relationships you build inside your new company.

Get to know the people you are likely to rely on, whether that's customer service, marketing, clinical support, product management, logistics, finance or other members of the sales team.

Understand what they do and how you can work effectively together.

This is particularly important in MedTech, where winning and retaining business can require input from several different functions.

Build a good relationship with your manager too. Understand how they like to communicate, how frequently they expect updates and when they want you to ask for support.

The quicker you build a strong internal network, the easier it will be to get things done when customers need you.

5. Listen Before You Try to Change Things

Joining a new company with plenty of ideas is a good thing. Assuming that everything should work the way it did at your previous employer isn't.

Spend some time understanding why things are done the way they are before deciding they need to change.

Listen to colleagues who know the products, customers and business. Ask questions and learn from their experience.

The same applies when taking over established accounts. Resist the temptation to arrive with an immediate sales pitch. Find out what's important to the customer, what their experience of the company has been and what they need from you.

Your previous experience is valuable, and there may be ideas and approaches you can bring to your new organisation. You'll be in a much better position to contribute them once you understand the environment you're working in.

6. Keep Learning and Ask Questions

No matter how experienced you are, there will be things you don't know when you start a new role.

Ask questions when you need to.

It is much better to clarify something during your first few weeks than to make an incorrect assumption because you were worried about appearing inexperienced.

Take responsibility for your own learning too. Make notes during training, revisit areas you don't fully understand and ask experienced colleagues where they think your knowledge gaps are.

Once you have completed your initial onboarding, think about what else would help you develop. That might include additional product training, clinical education, sales development or spending time with colleagues in other parts of the business.

The strongest medical sales professionals continue learning long after their formal induction has finished.

7. Create a 30, 60 and 90-Day Plan

Your employer may already have a structured onboarding programme, but creating your own 30, 60 and 90-day plan can help you stay focused.

Your first 30 days might concentrate on learning: products, clinical knowledge, systems, colleagues, customers and the territory.

By 60 days, you may be spending more time with customers, developing relationships, identifying opportunities and becoming increasingly independent.

By 90 days, you should have a much clearer understanding of your territory, priorities and pipeline and be able to identify where your biggest opportunities and challenges lie.

The exact milestones will depend on the complexity of the products and the role. A capital equipment salesperson with a long sales cycle will have very different early objectives from somebody managing an established consumables territory.

Review your plan regularly with your manager and adjust it as you learn more.

Give Yourself Time to Succeed

Starting a new medical sales role can be exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming.

You have new products to learn, new customers to meet and a new company to understand, all while wanting to demonstrate that your employer made the right decision in hiring you.

Don't put yourself under pressure to know everything immediately.

Focus on building strong foundations. Learn the products, understand the territory, develop good relationships and be clear about what's expected of you.

Do those things well and the commercial results will follow.

If you're considering your next move in medical sales or MedTech, Advance Recruitment can help you explore opportunities that fit your experience, ambitions and longer-term career goals.