The healthcare sales reps of today face many challenges, chief of which is a scepticism of their motives by the customers they seek to help. This is compounded by increasingly difficult access, cost objections, budget constraints, customer apathy, a revolving door of decision makers, and more.

Traditional healthcare industry sales training only exacerbates these issues and leaves many sales professionals frustrated with their ability to build meaningful relationships that improve patient outcomes and bring about real and lasting change.

Over the past several years industry training has reduced the role of the reps to product messengers, service provider and order-takers. This fails to capture the full potential of a talented and motivated group of professionals that are more than capable of adopting and executing advanced consultative sales techniques that help them engage their customers in more meaningful ways. This in turn increases employee productivity, employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention of your most valuable employees.

It takes confidence, competence and commitment to communicate value to broad stakeholder groups and adapt to an increasingly virtual selling world. Our healthcare sales training focuses on the mindset, skillsets and strategies critical to success in this continually evolving environment.

The pressure has never been higher on healthcare sales reps. They have to understand the priorities of clinical as well as non-clinical decision-makers and influencers, quickly connect with them and create unique, meaningful value for each. They’re selling transformation and better patient outcomes, not products’ features and benefits. And they have to do it all without being able to rely on many of their tried-and-true training strategies and selling approaches.

Drop-ins? Forget it. Hands-on demos? Not in the virtual selling world we now live in. Access to buyers was becoming more challenging even before the pandemic.  COVID forced a sudden pivot to digital outreach that was already accelerating.  And this simply won’t return to “normal.” Counting on the medical professionals you have longstanding relationships with to push the deal through? Increasingly rare.

Put simply, the stakes are up for your reps, and their comfort zones are gone. Adaptability, agility and a truly patient outcomes-focused mindset are critical.

In this demanding environment, healthcare sales training programs that focuses on skills and product knowledge is still important, but it’s not nearly enough. When you address mindset and build accountability into the process, you’ll help your sales reps discover a greater sense of purpose that will increase their self-belief, achievement drive and motivation. They’ll be able to push past the obstacles they’re up against and focus on what counts: increasing value, differentiation and commitments from every interaction and solidifying customer trust and loyalty.