How to Get into Medical Sales

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Permalink Reply by Linda Hertz on May 15, 2010 at 2:12pm

Hello John,

Thank you for asking this question. Really the question becomes if I am reading this correctly; How does one tranisition their career from a non sales position into Medical Sales. That really is difficult because almost all firms (and certainly all of my medical sales hiring clients) want someone who has a previous sales background selling the tough stuff (copiers, Paychex, ADP and maybe on the outside a Gallo Wine background). Those people have been put through the fire and have a corporate sales training and understand what it is like to get their heads bashed in making cold calls, taking rejection and landing sales. They want the people who have handled that AND have also succeeded in a BIG WAY like performed at the top of the forced Sales Ranking List (ideally won the Presidents Award). I wrote an article all about that way of getting solid Sales Training first in this article here . That said, this approach is great for people under 3 to 8 years out from college graduation.

I believe your question may center upon people who have made their bed early in their career without sales as part of their background and are now approaching or are currently in mid-career stage (age range of 30 to 40) and want to get into sales. Now that is a tough one, because who wants to go back at age 31 and take an entry level Sales Job hawking Copiers door to door....right? So their still may be a way to get into Medical Sales but this is really going to be for those who have a background in some segment of the medical industry and a company may want to pick up on your technical background and be willing to be put in a support role or some junior sales position.

For instance, if you are in Sports Training and really know your stuff about training equipment or gyms, maybe you can see if there are companies in that arena who manufacture training equipment and would love to have someone with your background and would gamble that you can pick up the sales piece because you could sell from the strength as a user of the product(s). Not exactly Medical Sales, but it would give you the sales background AND put you in a better position for perhaps the next step of interviewing for a Medical Durable Equipment Sales Position.

Hopefully this theme will help you as you try to tranistion into sales. I appreciate the question and will actually convert this piece into a Blog tomorrow with some additional ideas.

Thank you so much and please feel free to comment back if I am missing the mark or you have other questions concerning this approach.

Regards,

Linda

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