The Road to Success Is Just Ahead

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Sean Moore | | 8 Comments

I finally published my first book. 

Thanks to my beautiful wife Lisa for encouraging and believing in me! 

This book stems from my passion for sales and my desire to develop other sales leaders. Everything I have learned in my career has been gleaned from others or gained through self-discovery, and I want to share my observations with you with the hopes of providing encouragement, motivation, and inspiration as you strive to become the very best salesperson that you can be. I have found that these critical principles are not only applicable to our careers as salespeople, but they are also crucial to success in any type of worthwhile pursuit.

The road to success, whether for sales or for life in general, truly is just ahead, and I am exhilarated to be on the journey together with you.

Download for free by subscribing to my blog.  Thank you for reading!

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A Glimpse into Success, Part II

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Sean Moore | | 2 Comments

As Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ConMed, I have the privilege of working with extremely talented people every day. I do not take this for granted, and I have decided to use some posts to shine the spotlight on some of our terrific employees and leaders. This post is the second in the series, and you can read Part I here. I hope you will enjoy reading about these remarkable people and their secrets to success in medical sales.

I would like to focus this week’s post on our #1 Territory Manager for Altrus Sales in 2012. This particular colleague earned ConMed’s prestigious President’s Club award for 2012, and she exhibits several key characteristics that have contributed to her success. This manager is tenacious—not allowing a temporary answer of “no” to deter her. She is proactive, constantly thinking ahead as she strategizes and plans an effective course of action for each day and each year. And finally, this valuable colleague is a hard worker—she is willing to go above and beyond to help her customers solve issues, thus becoming a true team member rather than just a sales rep. I feel privileged to work alongside her, and I asked her a few questions regarding her experience in sales at ConMed.

If someone wants to be in medical sales and, more specifically, wants to sell Altrus for ConMed, please describe what types of scenarios to expect.

If you love being a continuous learner, you will love selling Altrus.  The environment is ever-changing with new procedures and new surgeons while building new and different relationships with different levels at hospitals and offices.  You have to stay on top of your technical learning as well as adapt to each environment accordingly. 

If you hate change and adaptation to different circumstances, then you will hate selling Altrus and medical sales in general.  If you are looking for the same type of environment on a daily basis, this type of sales is not for you.  Each day is a new challenge and a new accomplishment, so you have to be prepared to adapt to each day.

Have you ever had a surgeon that, at the outset, was completely disinterested in your product but is now a big believer? What changed that surgeon’s mind? How did you get through to him or her?

I firmly believe that if you continue the relationships with key targets and never take “no” as an answer the first few times, things will come around in your favor. You have to be persistent.  I recently had a surgeon that used Altrus a few times and just really was not a believer.  He would move handpieces if I was there to ask him to use it but would not pull the product if I was not there. 

He went on a mission trip with one of my converted surgeons, used Altrus, and came back raving about the product.  I kept asking and trying to convert him, and he eventually had an experience that made him a believer.  Had I walked away, he may have had the experience but known little about the product and may not have become a converted surgeon.  He knew from his experience on the mission trip that the product sealed well and that the blood loss, even in a patient with extremely low hemoglobin, was minimal.  He recognized that partly because I had explained Altrus to him on several occasions. 

What has been your most exciting moment in the OR?

I think my most rewarding moments have been when people believe in our products, whether it is Altrus, Smoke, or Argon.   To have that surgeon or nurse champion turn to you and tell you that the product works and that their job is better because of it is an amazing feeling.

In one instance, a pediatric surgeon had Altrus in the room just in case he needed it and had not placed it on the field yet.  His resident over cut with the scissors, and they could not get the vessel to stop bleeding.  He turned to me and the nurse and told us to open Altrus.  After he stopped the bleeding with Altrus, he said that the product performed excellently.  He is an Altrus believer now, and that feels great. 

What has been your most challenging moment in the OR?

My most challenging moments come in deciding how to react when things don’t go as planned.  Things could take a different path because the surgeon doesn’t know how to properly use the product—maybe he had a bad day, maybe the case was difficult, or maybe my product had an issue.  It is a challenge to know how to react under pressure and turn things back into a positive.  It also takes courage to go to a surgeon and troubleshoot an issue or negative situation, especially if his method was the issue. 

How important is goal setting to your success? How do you go about determining your goals and achieving them?

Goal setting is so important in knowing your path and plan of action.  I have short-term goals, medium-term goals, and long-term goals.  These goals drive me to do what I do every day and push me to go and speak to that last surgeon at the end of a long day or to get up and go work a case on a Saturday.  The goals are always in my head and—better yet—mapped out on paper so I can visualize them and plan accordingly.  Writing them down also helps if I miss hitting a milestone; I can go back and see where I missed the mark and then correct the issue. 

 How do you handle adversity in the field when things don’t go your way?

 I learned early on in medical sales that, more often than not, things don’t go exactly as you map them out.  The key to handling adversity is to find a new path or a new method.  If you are having absolutely no luck converting a surgeon, try converting his/her partner.  More than likely, they talk, and that is a different way to the target surgeon.   There is not only one right way, and when facing surgeons, support staff, and nurses, you have to be adaptable. 

How do you plan your day?  How far in advance do you plan?

I plan each week a week in advance; however, I review each day several times a week and adjust based on Altrus cases.  Because I have converted and have new surgeons, I have to plan my day accordingly and must be ready to adjust to changes in schedules.  Typically, all of the non-Altrus activity gets pushed to later in the day so that I can be in the OR every morning to review the schedule. 

What is your best advice for a brand new salesperson? 

Come into a sales position understanding that, in order to reap the rewards (and the rewards are there for the taking), you have to work hard.  Sales has to be the hardest job of my career but also the most satisfying and rewarding.  Medical device sales is even more rewarding than other sales positions I have held because you are truly a part of the solution in patient care and truly impact the overall outcome.  Be willing to work hard, and your career in medical device sales will be one that you will want to continue for years to come. 

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Four Incredible Words: I Believe In You!

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

Watch this short inspirational video!

Special thanks to a colleague for sharing this with me: this video has inspired my blog this week on the heels of ConMed’s National Sales Meeting.

What makes some people get up off the floor and persevere while others complain and despair? In this video, the man heard lots of negativity and “realism.” No one even gave him a chance. So what turned his life around? He found someone who believed in him, he took ownership of his circumstances, and he never, never gave up!

Now that our National Sales Meeting has concluded and everyone is back in the field, it is inevitable that we will face new challenges as we pursue a wildly successful 2013! The problem with these types of meetings is that they are like eating Chinese food. You get excited, eat until full, and then get hungry again in a few hours.

In other words, we come together at these meetings, we get excited about the year ahead, we leave to go home, and then the real works begins. How do we stay on point with our career goals?

It’s up to each one of us to remain diligent, persistent, and committed to our objectives for 2013.

Over the course of my career, I’ve realized there are four words that have the potential to change someone’s personal and career development. These four words can have a tremendous impact on one’s success. A few years ago, these four words changed my world when someone spoke them to me:

I Believe In You.

“I believe in you” is probably one of the most powerful statements anyone could make. These words allow someone to do and think things about themselves that weren’t previously possible or believable. I’ve learned that sometimes the thing we need most in life and business is someone who will believe in us. Through having someone believe in us, we can achieve greater things than we ever thought possible.

Life and business were never meant to be a cakewalk.

We will surely have our trials, challenges, and tribulations. Winning in life and business always requires us to be persistently consistent. It’s been said that “persistence beats resistance.” You may be down today, but you are definitely not out! People may be watching you like a hawk, expecting you to throw in the towel abruptly. I believe that “it’s not over until you succeed!” If you feel that there are more people against you than for you, I definitely understand how that feels, but trust me:

You are closer to your breakthrough than you think.

Someone once said this statement to me: “Life is not a rehearsal but the main show. Quit living like you are preparing for the main event and start showing up on the performance stage of life.” When life pushes us down, we have to learn how to get up and keep moving forward until life makes a way where there seemed to be no way.

Richard DeVos, Sr., a successful billionaire and businessman, states:

“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the traits of persistence and determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying ‘Here comes number seventy-one!’”

The point I’m trying to make here is that we should never give up. I believe in you! I am asking you to believe in yourself! Find the passion within you to create what you want in life. It’s an ongoing process that is ever-changing and evolving.

So do what it takes to make you truly happy and successful and never, never, never give up!

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Dream, Focus, and Succeed!

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Sean Moore | | 3 Comments

A few weeks ago, I shared with you my goals for 2013 and challenged you come up with your own BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals), write them down, and then share them.  If we choose to, we can all make 2013 an EPIC year!  One way to help achieve our dreams and goals is by creating a vision board.

What is a vision board, you ask?

A vision board is a simple but powerful visualization tool to get the Law of Attraction (more on this below) working for you. A vision board consists of a foam or poster board with pictures, drawings, graphs, and/or writing on it depicting the things that you want in your life or the person that you want to become.

A vision board helps to transform your dreams into reality by focusing your mind on the goals you want to achieve using a collection of personal, business, and “feel good” images that you look at several times each day. When you regularly and consistently focus your attention on the things most important to you, those most important things will become your reality. That is how the Law of Attraction works: what you focus on, you attract into your business and personal life!

What exactly is the Law of Attraction?

After some research, I discovered the following: the Law of Attraction states that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless of whether it is positive or negative.

From a scientific view, the Law of Attraction can be best explained by the information filtering system of the brain known as the reticular activating system (RAS). Vision boards serve in the role of programming the RAS to tune in to external stimuli that can help us move closer to what we want in life.

I found some great analogies/examples to explain the operation of the RAS and the Law of Attraction:

1)      Think of your RAS like a radio. You are surrounded by radio waves from various stations, and your portable radio can pick up those channels, but it can only pick up one at a time. You have to tune your radio to the specific frequency of your favorite radio station in order to hear it properly.

2)      Imagine that you are in a meeting room talking with several people, and from the distant corner of the room, you hear your name called. All of your focus gets diverted in the direction from which you heard your name because that bit of information is tagged by the RAS as being important to you.

3)      Your RAS is responsible for your ability to sleep through the noise of traffic outside your house but your sudden waking at the smallest cry from your infant child.

4)      Another example of the RAS occurs when you go and buy a brand new car—and then suddenly you notice many people around you that have the exact same car.

All successful people have developed ways of staying focused on their goals. A vision board can help you get there! A well-designed and impactful vision board is:

1. Visual. Your subconscious mind works in pictures, so your vision board needs to be highly visual, with lots of images. You can also include positive words and phrases.

2. Emotional. Each image on your vision board should generate a positive emotional response. Your vision board should be uplifting, which will increase your passion for achieving your desires.

3. Strategically-placed. Your vision board should be carefully placed somewhere you will often see it, so that its messages regularly reach your subconscious mind.

With 2013 upon us, let’s make every attempt to make this an EPIC year in both our professional and personal lives. I wish you all the best in your quest for greatness and success!

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From Problems to Progress

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Sean Moore | | Leave a comment

 I found this great quote online and had to share it with all of you this week.  After someresearch, the only source I could find for the author is Zig Ziglar in his book entitled Over the Top. Zig claims it originally came from a Mr. Robert Updegraff, who was an editorial writer for The Boston Globe.

 

“Be thankful for the troubles of your job.  They provide about half your income.  Because if it were not for the things that go wrong, the difficult people you have to deal with, and the problems and unpleasantness of your working day, someone could be found to handle your job for half of what you are being paid.

It takes intelligence, resourcefulness, patience, tact, and courage to meet the troubles of any job.  That is why you hold your present job.  And it may be the reason you aren’t holding down an even bigger one. 

If all of us would start to look for more troubles and learn to handle them cheerfully and with good judgment, as opportunities rather than irritations, we would find ourselves getting ahead at a surprising rate.  For it is a fact that there are plenty of big jobs waiting for men and women who aren’t afraid of the troubles connected with them.” 

Every so often, something will happen that sets us back. We may not be thrilled to deal with a disappointment or a problem.  We all know that life and work are not going to be perfect and pleasant all of the time, so we shouldn’t be surprised when challenges arrive in our lives. We need to look for solutions to the problems that come our way instead of being bogged down with irrational disbelief that the world had the audacity to allow bad things to happen to us!

Adversity, problems, and challenges are inevitable, but suffering is optional.

The goal is to turn these misfortunes into tangible, exciting opportunities! I guarantee that if you can do this, the benefits are more far-reaching than you could have ever imagined.

So how do we transform these harsh conditions into opportunities?

1.  Slow down and take control.

Whether you’re in the OR dealing with a difficult procedure or faced with a supply issue, don’t panic! It’s amazing how simple some solutions become if we take the time to slow down and display some emotional intelligence.  When anxiety or other emotions take over, our ability to think strategically diminishes. It’s imperative for us to regain our composure the moment a problem arises.

 2.  Stay positive.

Are you always imagining the worst case scenario when you are facing issues?  Remember: these challenges can be our best teachers and will make us stronger in the end.  The moment you start thinking this way, your attitude becomes a stimulus for problem solving, and, in turn, your fear will dissolve. Now you will not view your challenges as enemies but will rather embrace them.  You can then start to believe that, no matter what challenge or misfortune you face, you can and will overcome it!

 3.  Seek out a mentor.

Once we are calm and positive, we are fully aware of our ability to resolve a crisis.  This is when we can seek out a second opinion.  Sometimes, taking a step back and seeing how someone else would solve the very same problem may give you a fresh perspective. However, do not attempt to get counsel from someone that has no experience or knowledge about your particular challenge. Otherwise, you may end up with faulty advice and land in a worse position than your starting point.

4.  Find a solution and then execute with confidence.

Write down all possible solutions to your dilemma on a piece of paper. I personally like to go for a run or do some cardiovascular activity before writing out my solutions, as this allows me to hash out all my thoughts.  You will be surprised at how many solutions you come up with after completing this exercise. The goal of the exercise is to pull from the advice you’ve obtained, do your own research, and then draw your conclusions. Once you have your solution, list the specific steps needed in order to make the best of your situation, and there you go—you’ve just created an opportunity! I need to stress that this only becomes a true opportunity when you execute the steps you have created to achieve the end results you are seeking. 

If we can commit to and execute this process of dealing with misfortunes, challenges, and adversity, I believe there is nothing that we can’t overcome. Let’s surprise ourselves by what we can handle!

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