Selling medical devices and equipment is not an easy job.
You’ll be queued!
You’ll be stranded!
And at times, you’ll be shooed without a proper response!
And even if you may make it with the fast-moving supplies…
Chances are high; expensive medical devices throw up the sad reality of oligopoly…
And why not? It’s a matter of health, after all. Right? Not so much.
It’s a matter of how you capture your potential buyers’ trust. Is your product trustworthy? Are you showing your product value to the stakeholders? And a few more challenging questions to ask yourself.
With that said, some techniques help you crack the complex doorway codes to the medical industry. Fret not! We’ll hop on the section later.
But let’s take on the challenges with selling expensive medical devices and equipment before that…
Challenge #1: Big decision committee would mean getting everyone under the same shed… which is basically a hard nut to chew.
Challenge #2: Either your product is complex, or you make it sound like one. End of the day… you’ve got to have everyone on your side.
Challenge #3: Long sales cycles and slow conversion can be discouraging for you.
Challenge #4: Live demos of the bigger and heavier products is an uphill and strenuous task.
Now let’s sell your expensive medical devices with some of the successful techniques…
Strategy #1 Educate yourself first, Stakeholders second
Everything boils down to how good you know your medical devices.
Why are they expensive? How do they differ from the existing devices in the market? Do they have killer benefits and features?
The more you educate yourself regarding the product, the better you’ll serve the queries for your stakeholders. The fact you’re dealing with “decision-makers” and not a “decision-maker” in a lengthy sales funnel, you’ve to be a little more armed with the knowledge to respond to whatever they throw your way.
You can’t afford to have any chink in your armor at this stage. Instead, you have to use your knowledge to your advantage and ensure no question is unanswered.
Strategy #2 The odds of going online are way too high. Have you gone yet?
The revenue for online medical sales supply has ballooned up to 5.2 billion dollars in the United States.
And most of the growth came in 2020 alone… the pandemic year! You wouldn’t believe in your ears the spike was 17%.
So there’s a direct correlation between selling medical equipment online and a successful conversion rate.
Building online authority gives you a definite edge over the businesses who don’t want to leap from their brick-and-mortar habits.
The other benefits of selling your expensive medical devices and equipment online are: many buying prospects worldwide await, and you can target all of them.
Strategy #3 Prepare separately for different buying personas and show them you care
Since you’re working in a long sales cycle, the first meeting in the hospital or clinic you have is to build a rapport more than to being salesy right at the word go.
Whether you’re meeting a surgeon, supply manager, support staff, nurse manager, or a physician, make sure you prepare differently for different personas and visit each one of them multiple times.
You have to sell means-end benefits rather than the devices. Show how much it means for you to save the surgeon’s time or manage the supply manager’s headache.
Learn more about their responsibilities and specialty. It’s only a matter of time they pull the sales trigger.
But the key to converting them is to show how much you care about the efficient workflow of the medical industry and how personalized the buyer’s journey is.
Strategy #4 Be a part of their buying journey, right till the end
Your job doesn’t fold if they’ve ordered the devices with you. In fact, the real test of the sales’ meat starts at this point where your buyers expect healthy assistance.
So you must be present while your devices are getting installed at their places. Being present in their vicinity post-sales cycle fosters a long-lasting relationship and sends a trust signal to your buyers.
And should any technical issue arise during prepping up for the device, your presence will mark a sense of quick & affirmative service. It eventually thrives fruitful partnership in the long run.
Not many things are in your control in the medical industry. But being responsive and engaging pre and post-sales cycle is the least you can control from your end.
Strategy #5 Don’t discount augmented and virtual reality
While you can make the case that it’s hard to carry bigger and heavier devices like CT scanners and MRIs hospitals after hospitals, mind you, the old, fogy tricks like brochures and printed sheets don’t work anymore.
Imagine yourself buying a product. Seldom you wouldn’t want to touch and envision the product in your life. You always want to know its utility, right in front of your eyes.
Similarly, hospitals like to have live demos to understand how easy it’s for them to use the device. You have to make the product value visualize to them. Or else your device is simply labeled a “complex product deemed unfit for use.”
But you can showcase your products through powerful visualization technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and animations. The idea is to effectively demonstrate your complex product.
Bonus strategies
- Keep yourself updated on MedTech industry
- Focus on their patients and keep them at the forefront
- Concentrate on product proposition
- Re-Work on your sales strategy if it’s not working
The concluding argument
Please note selling medical devices is nothing but lots of general sales strategy + plenty of no’s— mainly when the market has a number of big players to dominate.
So you want to create the best chance for you which comes with getting into an e-medical landscape.
