Medsider: Learn from Medtech and Healthtech Founders and CEOs - Inside the Mind of a Medtech VP of Sales

Episode Date: October 7, 2014

Sean Moore went from medical device sales rep to VP of Sales for one of the largest medtech companies in less than 10 years. Pretty impressive, right? Just like me, you might be thinking, “How did he do it? Killer sales results year after year? Right place at the right time?” In this interview with...[read more]Related StoriesSubstantial and Sustainable – 2 Words That Medtech Companies Should Get Used ToSocial Media Best Practices for Marketing Medical DevicesAre Medical Device Models the Key to Building a Lean Medtech Startup? 

Welcome to Medsider, where you can learn from experienced medical device and med tech experts through uncut and unedited interviews. Now, here's your host, Scott Nelson. Sean Moore went from medical device sales rep to VP of sales for one of the largest med tech companies in less than 10 years. Pretty impressive, right? Just like me, you might be thinking, but how did he do it? Killer sales results year after year? Right place at the right time? Well stay tuned because in this interview with Sean Moore, VP of Sales and Marketing for

ConMed, you'll learn the keys to his rapid career advancement within the medical device space. And better yet, you'll walk away with some fantastic insights from one of the rising stars throughout all of med tech. Here are some of the things we're going to learn. The top three to five keys to Sean's rapid career advancement within the med tech space. What does Sean look for when promoting sales reps and or sales managers to the next level? The character traits of the most successful medical device sales reps and sales managers?

What surprised Sean the most when he combined the sales and marketing departments at ConMed? Direct sales versus distribution for Medtech companies is one better than the other and can they work together? What concerns Sean the most about the rapidly changing healthcare environment? And conversely, what excites him the most? And what does Sean know now that he wished he knew at the beginning of his medical device career? Of course, there's a lot more that we're going to cover in this interview with Sean Moore. But before we get started, listen to these very brief two messages. First, to get free email updates when another MedSider episode goes live,

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It's super easy. Also, if you like the podcast, don't forget to rate it. That really helps us out. Okay. For you ambitious doers, here's your program. Hello, hello everyone. It's Scott Nelson and welcome to another edition of Medsider, the place where you can learn from experienced medical device thought leaders. And on today's program, we've got Sean Moore, who is the vice president of sales and marketing for con med, a world-class provider of medical equipment for minimally invasive surgeries and monitoring. Sean has extensive experience establishing and managing top-producing sales organizations through direct involvement in large deals as a sponsor.

or closer with a proven success record generating, negotiating, and winning major national accounts. So without further ado, welcome to the program, Sean. I really appreciate you coming on. No, thank you, Scott, for inviting me. I've been looking forward to this conversation. Exactly. So let's start here, Sean. You've had a pretty rapid sort of career advancement, or you followed a really rapid career advancement path,

both within ConMed as well as a short stent outside of ConMed. What are the two or three keys to that rapid career advancement that you've experienced? Well, I mean, Scott, one of the things that I think really helps people to advance in their career is you always have to be learning and looking for opportunities to grow. Not only that, I think it's also important that, when you're working for an organization is that you're always looking for additional projects and additional opportunities within the company

to take advantage of. So often you see people, what I observe, people in the organization who don't take those additional opportunities to take those on those extra projects in order to bring exposure to them in order to get recognized by upper management and then to get those opportunities.

So with that, also, you know, always going above and beyond expectations. I mean, what an organization that you work for, everybody has a certain expectation of what they're expecting to deliver. If you set your expectations higher than that and deliver on your own high expectations, you're really going to give yourself an opportunity and take those next opportunities. You know, when it comes to, you know, management positions or that next position, it's always good to be able to be flexible when it comes to relocation. One of the things in my career, I've always been very flexible to relocate. I mean, I relocated from Vancouver, British Columbia to Washington, D.C.,

and I want to take that next step in my career, and I move from Washington, D.C. to Denver, and we're going to take that next step. So if people are really flexible in relocation, that can really accelerate their path in their adventuring of the career. And then obviously the basic stuff, I mean, all we're delivering on results. And then that gets final, I think the most important thing is that, you know, especially as you enter into a leadership role, is you always got to be developing your people.

Once you develop your people, you're preparing your replacement in order to take your position. It's so much easier for our company to promote someone, if they feel comfortable that the person falling in their footsteps is prepared on to take on that responsibility. Got it. So those are really great points. I'm going to ask you a couple follow-up items. So I think especially, I mean, you're sort of a sales guy by nature.

You came up through the sales ranks. I think there's sort of a general understanding that you've got to make Presence Club and you've got to make it not just for one year, but multiple years in order to get promoted, et cetera. And like you said, certainly that helps, but it sounds like that's not the only thing. That person's got to look for additional opportunities. besides just hitting their sales number or exceeding their sales number. Is that the case? Am I correct in that?

Yeah, I mean, you definitely are. One of the things that, you know, as a leader, when I'm looking to promote one of my sales rep into a management role, I mean, definitely, you know, hitting presidents clubs, being able to demonstrate that you can sell new products. Because at the end of the day, you have to be able to demonstrate that you can do those things because you're going to be teaching people how to do that. And then you also want to have the respect of the team that you're leading. But, you know, there's other qualities that are really important when you're looking to promote

a sales rep into maybe a sales manager. And, you know, one of those things is really having a servant leadership perspective on your new role. And, you know, just because you're a great salesperson doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a great sales manager. I mean, when you become a sales manager, you really step. out of the line light. And it really becomes about your people that you're leading.

And it's no longer about you. And I see some managers that struggle with that, you know, when they've been a superstar sales rep, they get into that management role, and they have a hard time making that transition about, hey, this is no longer about me, and this is about my people that I'm leading and really removing themselves out of the line life

and really embracing the whole servant leadership. I mean, I often talk to my sales leadership. Remember when you were a salesperson, the most important party to you was your end customer. Well, now as you become a sales manager, your customers are now your salespeople, and that's how you have to look at leading them. And then probably the second thing that I look for

in promoting somebody is, you know, candor. I mean, I want someone to have the emotional fortitude to be able to tell me what they really think what they really believe, because at the end of the day, you don't, the greatest enemy of a leader is group think. And the last thing you want to have happen is your people just telling you what you think, you know, what you think you want to hear. Those are really, I wouldn't have expected you to point out those two,

those sort of two topics, servant leadership and then candor in an effort to avoid groupthink. I really like that, that concept. Can you speak a little bit more, especially in regards to servant leadership? And I also want to ask you a follow-up question about candor, but really on the servant leadership aspect, are there things that a successful sales rep can do sort of personally to become more of a servant? Because you're dealing with typically with, you know, with alpha, alpha dogs, you know, those sales reps that have done really well from, you know, in terms of exceeding their numbers and well beyond their numbers. are there a couple things that come to mind

when making that transition to more of a servant leader? Well, yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, one of the things I talked about, you know, things you can do to get promoted is taking on those extra, you know, opportunities and so forth. I mean, one of the things that, you know,

that you can do to help develop those types of things or to be identified as a servant leader is just to take those opportunities to help develop your colleagues. I mean, we have several, opportunities in ConMed, where we're, you're not making extra money, but it gives you an opportunity to become like a sales trainer, where, you know, you're actually taking time out of your own field to go work with a new hire, to help develop them.

And really, by demonstrating that you're willing to do those things and that you're, and that you're capable of doing those things, really illustrates that you have those capabilities of being a servant leader. Got it. Okay. And then on the topic of candor, that, that, That's really interesting because I think especially in large companies like ConMed, for example, the easy thing is sort of to be a yes man, you know, and for fear of maybe getting on the wrong

side of your boss or your senior leadership. Yeah. But instead, you're saying that you actually look for people that don't necessarily say no, but are more transparent and authentic and aren't afraid to disagree with you. what would you say to maybe folks that are listening to this call and sort of have that fear right now that if they'd like to maybe step out of their own comfort zone and maybe disagree sometimes but but you know they've got that sort of that that underlying fear so you know how to step out of them being fear of actually you know going potentially to your manager and and expressing

a different point of view Right, yeah, exactly, yep. I mean, that's a tough one, Scott, because really that type of environment has to be created from that manager. If the manager doesn't create an environment where they allow candor, then it's hard for that person to, you know,

step outside, outside the box and to feel comfortable doing that. I guess the best advice I could have is to, you know, really go and have that type of conversation with your manager and say, hey, you know, this is what's happening. You know, I'm committed to the company and committed to the overall vision and what we're trying to do. But, you know, this is what I'm seeing in trying to facilitate

that type of environment. But, I mean, the question you're asking me is a really tough question because, you know, that really can't come from the bottom up. That type of environment really has to be pushed from the top down. You know, and one of the things that I always, you know, do with my executive leadership team or the leadership team from my sales directors to my directors, as we conduct these, you know, we conduct an area director meeting once a quarter. And one of the things we really work on is, you know, developing, you know, a real trust tree.

You know, one of the things we really subscribe to is the five disfunctions of the team. And, you know, at first it's kind of tough to, you know, when you think of the five dysfunction of the team, one of the most important thing is trust. But as you keep working at it and you keep developing and, you know, you're doing team building and you create an open environment where there's trust, then you can have conflict. And where there's trust and then you can have conflict, that's where the candor comes from. So I'm not sure if I gave you the answer that you're looking for, but I hope that makes sense. No, and it does.

And to your point, it certainly makes it a lot easier if the culture is there where, you know, someone in an executive leadership role like yourself is trying to create that sort of that sort of environment. And I think you, I mean, I mean, I think you hit it on the head with, you know, maybe that person that fears, that has that fear of disagreeing, of voicing their disagreement on a decision with their manager. They just need to have a candid conversation in a respectful way and move on. So I don't want to focus too much on that, but I was just curious to get your thought because

I wasn't expecting candor to be on the two points that you mentioned, but I love of the fact that you brought it up. So let's move on to a recent sort of blog series. And you've become quite sort of quite a notorious blogger in your own right. And you recently sort of finished up a series on what makes sort of the attributes or characteristics of both successful medical device reps and managers. So I'd like to first ask you, well, where can people read more of your content? or find your blog.

And then two, what are, what are some of the key learnings that you noticed throughout that series? Well, one of the things that we decided to do is, I mean, by me blogging, it's a great opportunity for a couple things. One is that, you know, in our current structure right now, we have sales reps, report into area directors who report into a sales director than report into me. And, you know, there's a bigger gap than there used to be between myself. of the Salesforce.

So it allows me, one, to communicate with the Salesforce on a regular basis. And there's a benefit of that because it helps promote the culture we're trying to promote. But it also, in a way, it helps develop a relationship between them and myself because they hear my thoughts every week and what it takes to be successful and what I've observed when I'm traveling in the field. That's part of it. The other part of it, it allows me to communicate with the other social networks. I mean, recruiting is a very important part of what we do,

developing our people and then recruiting the right people. And you're quite aware of the power of social media now and LinkedIn and blogging and so forth. And it really allows an opportunity for me to communicate with potential candidates who are more of a passive candidate who maybe aren't necessarily looking for a new opportunity, but see my blog and say, hey, you know what, that might be a company I might want to work for.

And then they start doing more research, start going on LinkedIn and looking at other profiles of people that work for a company. So, you know, those are the two reasons why I blog. But your second part of your question was the whole, you know, what makes a successful territory manager. And, you know, that series really started, wow, it's probably about six to nine months ago. And really what it was was, hey, let's identify, you know,

our top 20% of our sales force. And let's really dig in and find out what makes them successful. What are the tricks of the trades? And what was unique about the whole experience was that, you know, I would periodically post a interview, you know, once every few weeks. But then over the course of six or nine months, you know, we ended up taking them all and collecting them. And there were some common threads amongst, you know,

what are some common threads of what made a successful rep. And some of those things were, you know, one of the things that really came to light was our most successful reps, and I would guess this would be a lot with a lot of other companies, especially companies that are going for a new product, launch, startups, or so forth like we're doing, is, you know, they exhibit, you know, rugged and fierce perseverance. I mean, when you're trying to sell a new product and you've been in this position, I mean, it's not easy. You know, you have to be able to, you know, be able to handle the rejection

or, you know, the issues that come with launching a new product and just be able to persevere, you know, get through that wall. So that was one of them. The other thing that came out of the interviews was that these people were, you know, they were committed lifetime learners. In other words, they were always looking for opportunities to learn, you know, learn a new procedure, learn why a doctor was using our products. that specific procedure and then sharing it with their colleagues.

Third was relentless goal setters. They were constantly setting goals. I mean, not only just like yearly goals, but quarterly goals, weekly goals, daily goals. And then the other thing that was, well, I was surprised to find in these interviews is that they had like a global mindset. they really saw the big picture of what we were trying to do as a corporation. And they really set to focus on the overall big picture and where we were going as a company.

I think that also kind of helps with the whole person. And then I guess finally, and it's kind of a basic skill, I guess, in sales and management, they were good listeners. You know, they were really looking, you know, listening to their customers. And we did a couple interviews with some managers that were successful. And what came out of that is that they were always listening to their territory managers and what they needed in order to be successful. So, you know, it was a pretty enlightening experiment or experience that we participated in.

And, you know, it really actually helped us with our recruiting process because those are the skills that we look through throughout the recruiting process. Got it. Yeah. No, no, that's great stuff. And just in review, and I know, sure, I personally, when I listen to interviews, I actually take notes typically like an Evernote or something like that, just to sort of, just from a learning, I feel like it helps me from a learning perspective. But if anyone's taking notes, those five that Sean mentioned, rugged perseverance, lifetime, lifetime learners, relentless goal setters, you know, having a global mindset. And then lastly, the ability to listen well. well, or, you know, good listeners. Those were kind of the five view that you mentioned. All great, and a couple of them are kind of surprising. I mean, maybe perseverance and goal setting is fairly common, but lifetime learning, the global mindset, that's, those are really interesting sort of qualities that you,

that you notice. And I love the fact that when I read your blog, it's not, it doesn't have like the typical corporate spin that you'd get maybe from reading, you know, some other sort of executive leader that would write down, write down something. you'd have the corporate marcom people get involved and it would turn into a piece that wasn't enjoyable to read. But actually, your writing is very engaging and very, very good. I would encourage anyone listening to go check out Sean's blog for sure. I appreciate that.

No, I mean that. I mean that. It's uncommon in the medical device space. So it's definitely appreciated. We need more of it in my opinion. So let's use this as sort of a transition point to, I introduce. you as the vice president of sales for or vice president of sales and marketing and I'm not sure exactly how recent how recent this was but I think you could you did combine sort of the sales and marketing departments under one umbrella I'm curious to get your thoughts on on how that went

and maybe some of the biggest biggest surprises not necessarily surprises but the biggest sort of takeaways that that that you got from combining both of those departments yeah I mean probably three years ago we combined sales and marketing And for us, it made sense. I mean, I'm not saying that it makes sense for every organization to do that, but for us, it seemed to make sense. I mean, one of the observations that I've made throughout my career was that, you know, I carried a bag.

I was a salesperson, and I was an area director or a sales manager. But I often found that, you know, there was just disjointment between sales and marketing. It was kind of like two trains, you know, running in opposite directions in the middle of the night. And, you know, I just found that there was so much, opportunity that if there was a better collaboration between the both department, that there could be tremendous opportunity for an organization. So, you know, the observation that we've learned over the past couple years is that,

the one, there's no silos. I mean, I have basically reporting to me, I have two directors, or three directors, I have a director of sales and two directors of sales and a director of marketing. And we are always communicating. Once the quarter, we're always getting to get. together, you know, I have my directors of sales presenting numbers. I've got my marketing department presenting their NBOs for the quarter. And we're always updating each other.

And what happens is that, you know, you have salespeople who are saying, hey, we really need this in order to help us sell this particular product or something like that. And then you have marketing in the same room, and then they're creating these tools in order to, you know, support the Salesforce. course, instead of running both in different silos and having marketing saying, here's a sales tool to help you sell this product when it was never asked for in the first place. So, you know, one of the things, the biggest, I guess, takeaway for me was that when you combine

sales and marketing, whether you're doing a product launch or you're releasing a new document, a new supporting material or anything like that, is that you're learning then you launch versus when you have sales and business. marketing separated, you launch, then you learn after them. So, you know, if you think of where the industry is going right now, I mean, so many companies are launching new products so much faster than they were before, and it's so important that we're much more efficient with our resources. But I really can believe that, you know, at least for us anyway,

we've seen tremendous benefits from combining those sales and marketing. And really it's more, and it's all comes down to just this better collaboration between the two departments. Got it. And you said that, I want to, because you cut out for a little bit, and I didn't quite catch the verbiage that you used, but did you say that, in essence,

it allowed, you know, especially specific to a product launch, it allows you to learn before you launch versus just simply launching a product and then learning after? Exactly. Got it, got it. Okay, I think that's really valuable, especially, you know, when you, you know,

the tech, the consumer tech companies get a lot, get a lot of hype, you know, the drop boxes of the world and the Airbnbs of the world, and they're known for, you know, iterating extremely quickly. And so I think that that speaks to your point of being able to, especially with the product, with an imminent product launch, to be able to learn and iterate very quickly rather than just dump a product and sort of learn after the fact. And the other thing is, I also think you're more effective with your resources, because what ends up happening is that, you know, the marketing people are creating tools that the sales

organization said they needed to use, and then because they all report into one, a person myself, is there's a high-level accountability, where, you know, if you say you need this, we're going to develop it for you, and then you better use it. Got it. Yeah, that's good stuff. And I've got quite a few other questions that I want to get to, but for the sake of time, I may skip a couple of these. But I am interested in sort of the concept of direct sales versus distribution.

and I'd like to get your thoughts on that, because I know, I think, at NeoVasque, you know, you spend a short time at NeoVasque, which was, I think, a sort of a distribution model. Do you think that in the medical device space, because SG&A costs are so high that we may get to a point where distribution becomes more normal than it is today? Yeah, well, at least in our space, and it really depends where distribution makes sense, right? I mean, when you're dealing with a commodity item that is mass-produced, distribution is a good model for that, especially if you have a smaller sales force.

I mean, you have your distribution channel. You can reach so many more people. And, you know, obviously with, you know, hospitals trying to contain costs, it's much more effective for them to, you know, deal with a distribution which all the products are being funneled through versus ordering from each individual, you know, company that's a new product for us. However, with that said, the direct model really works well when you have a product that's a proprietary product, a new product,

a product that requires a real clinical sales process to it. That type of model, keeping that direct, at least for us, makes sense. I mean, there's a couple of reasons why that makes sense is, you know, if you're launching a new product that has a real clinical sales process, you want to be able to get your feedback really quickly. And a lot of times if you go to a distribution model or distribution chain, that feedback from the customer is delayed. The other thing, too, is when you're doing direct, it really allows you to monitor and be aware of where your sales are going. I mean, with a distribution model, you usually ship one order to a distributor. That product gets filtered out to different customers, and then they eventually will report back to you

where those sales went, but there's a real delay in getting feedback as to where those sales are going. So when it comes to, you know, the commodity-based items, a product that's been around that's in, you know, the later growth stages, so to speak, or in the mature stages, might make sense to do a distribution model. But when it comes to new products, startups, I think the direct model is going to stay. Got it. Okay.

And let's segue into a point that you mentioned earlier in talking about successful reps, having a kind of a global mindset. And I obviously, in your role as the VP of Sales I'm marketing for ConMed, you've got to definitely have a global mindset. And you're thinking about where is this health care, the changes that we're seeing in the healthcare environment now, where is this going? And so, you know, having said that or on that note, what sort of concerns you the most of concerns you the most about the disruption that's going on within health care right now. And then on the other hand, what are you really excited about? Yeah, that's a good question.

I mean, with the whole health care reform, I mean, I have many concerns just like many other medical device executives do. I mean, one of my biggest concerns is that, you know, if you think of the medical device tax, at the end of the day, we're increasing our cost of our products. and what my biggest concern is is that one of the great things about the medical device industry is the innovation within the industry. And what my concern is is that if you look back, you know, 10 years ago,

I mean, it wasn't unheard of, it was pretty much the norm where medical device companies were showing rates of, you know, growth rates of, you know, 10, 12%, you know, if you look at the overall growth of the medical device industry with companies across the board in single digits right now. So, you know, as growth slows, you can only, and obviously we have to provide return to our investors, you eventually have to start cutting costs, right? But then when you throw the medical device tax on top of that,

really what you're going to end up having, my concern is, you know, all that innovation, the R&D efforts and so forth, are really going to be focused on driving costs down. instead of driving innovation and new products and so forth in the industry. So that would be, you know, one of my concerns with, you know, some of these new health care reform. And, you know, I have an interesting perspective. The second concern is that I'm originally from Canada,

so I've been living in the U.S. for about 10 years. I actually started in my medical device sales career in Canada and was a patient within the health care system within Canada. And that is not the perfect system. you know, having a government make health care decisions for you, instead of being in a position to make your own decisions, I don't think that's the solution that we're looking for. So does that answer your question? No, it does. And I'm glad you brought that up, the fact that you're originally from Canada, so you definitely do have a unique perspective that you can offer, considering the position you're in now.

And, you know, there's certainly a lot of doom and gloom. you mentioned a lot of those, you know, sort of those points, those concerning points to you, namely the focus on almost increasing operational efficiency versus product innovation or top line growth. Is there, I mean, when you look at the environment we're in right now, are there a few things that we can be optimistic about then? Oh, yeah, most definitely. I mean, one of the things that I think, you know, everybody is afraid of change. And, you know, one of, you know, what, The people that have a hard time dealing with change because they focus on the exit of change

versus the entrance of change. You know, with change brings opportunity. And with that opportunity, I mean, if you go to the different, you know, healthcare systems, you know, within the country, I mean, there's so much opportunity to, you know, to find efficiencies. And there hasn't been a better time where you have hospitals who are willing to listen

and are willing to think out. outside the box and are willing to talk to different companies who are bringing innovative solutions in order to help them with their current challenges that they're having. Yeah, and it almost comes down to really almost a mindset. I'm not sure if you would agree with this, but those folks that truly look and believe at view change as a chance for opportunity, those are the folks that are going to make a difference in succeeding in the future. versus, you know, if you view change as just a, it's disruptive and you're pessimistic about it,

well, then you'll probably see the fruits of that. Would you agree? I agree. It sounds cliche and it sounds simple, but it kind of almost, you know, in a sense, comes down to just basic mindset. Okay, we're back. I had a slight technical difficulty there, but in referencing sort of the current change that we're experiencing within the healthcare environment and then looking at your current product portfolio, as well as maybe what's in your pipeline.

How important it is, how important is it to be able to incorporate and communicate the economic value of a medical device today? Well, today even more so than ever before, that is imperative for a company and, you know, marketing sales department to be able to, you know, clearly communicate the economic value of a medical device that you're promoting. I mean, we're living in a day and age now. where, you know, we're in clinic, hospitals are looking at clinical-based medicine

and they want the supporting data to weigh in to the economic benefits. I mean, there's a continued debate that happen, and, you know, when we're in the value analysis committees and, you know, hospitals or the administrations are talking, you know, with their physicians, you know, does the clinical benefit outweigh the cost? I mean, that's the biggest challenge. I mean, if I was a patient, I want the very best clinical outcome possible. And, you know, the clinical benefit, so how much of the clinical benefit weighs a certain cost? And that's, I think, what's happening right now is the debate within the industry, trying to figure that out.

And, you know, as a medical device company, we have to be able to clearly demonstrate and provide the supporting data that clearly communicates the economic benefit of your product. Yeah, and you mentioned the value analysis team. I think you hit it on the nose and that. Yes, the clinical data may be superior, but is it worth the price uptick? That's what it comes down to. And it's interesting. I did an interview recently with a consultant from L.E.K.

And, you know, he hit out on the nose and that, you know, some of these decision makers aren't, you know, we all know that physicians are becoming less and less of a decision maker, but he referenced the fact that, you know, hospital administrators and these value analysis teams are becoming the, you know, the new thought leaders or the new KOLs. And I thought it was a great point. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The physicians nowadays, I mean, we talk a lot about, I mean, how, you know, one point in time, I mean, if a surgeon wanted something, they got it.

Ten years ago, I want this product. They would ship it in for that doctor. Nowadays, to your point, there's so much power, and we call it political capital. Surgeons are having less and less political capital. And as a company, you know, you have to be able to, and this is on the surgeon's side, is be able to clearly demonstrate that your product is that much superior

than what they're using and what are issues they're currently having so that they're willing to, you know, expand what little capital, little political capital they have in order to get your product in. And that's what is the real transition in the whole sales process amongst medical device companies now. Yeah, I love that terminology, political capital. I always sort of refer to it as they've got less arrows in their quiver, but less political capital sounds a little bit more professional.

So let's reach towards a sort of a conclusion here. You know, when you look at, I mentioned earlier you've had a rapid sort of a cent. within your medical device career. Are there a few things that you really wish, or that, actually, let me rephrase that, that you know now that you really wish you understood, you know, back when you first started as a medical device rep? Yeah, I mean, it's funny because, you know, that's a tough question.

But, you know, I do have some thoughts on that. You know, one of the things when I first started my career, you know, being in sales, you know, we talked about the alphas and type A personality. You know, I had my defeats, you know. I didn't get every deal that I was out there trying to close. And, you know, I beat myself up all the time if I would lose a deal. And yet at the same time, you know, there was a lot of deals I was closing. And, you know, I closed like 10 deals, I could lose one and harp on the one deal that I lost,

yet didn't spend enough time, you know, taking time to smell the roses and enjoying the ride. And really, I guess it goes back to the global mindset. I mean, if you're out there and you're working hard every day, you're going to create your opportunity. You're going to create luck for yourself, and good things are going to happen. And you just got to, you know, persevere, keep going, you know, and just really, I guess, enjoy the ride.

Yeah. I mean, selling medical device is such a great, it's such a great job. I mean, I've never enjoyed, you know, I just enjoy selling medical devices. I mean, where do you have an opportunity to, you know, obviously sell the products, and, you know, there's a lot of people in sales, and they enjoy the whole sales process and the hunt, you know, and the successes. But here we are. We're in an opportunity where we're actually selling products that makes people's lives better,

to have, you know, clinical benefits to people. They're really making a difference. And I think early in my career, I was still focused on, you know, achieving the overall goal and the overall sales number. And, you know, that's obviously important, but then enjoying the ride along the way. Yeah. Now, I love that you brought that up.

In fact, I'm reminded of an article that I recently read by Ryan Holiday, who wrote the, I think his first, best sell. He's kind of famous for working with Tim Ferriss and Tucker Max and Robert Green, you know, through his books. But Ryan recently released a book called Confessions of a Media Manipulator, which was a fascinating read. The title is obviously pretty provocative. But he also released another book called Growth, Growth Hacker Marketing, something along those lines. But great writer, but he recently wrote a piece about, it was almost a letter to himself early on his career. And the thing that stood out to me most was, I think I'm paraphrasing here,

but he said, you know, make sure you breathe and enjoy the journey and not just, you know, what achievement lies, you know, beyond the journey. And just that idea of really enjoying that process, you know, taking a step back, taking a breath and enjoying the process, I think is huge. So I'm really glad you brought that up. That's good stuff. So Sean, we'll go ahead and reaching conclusion. I want to make sure that we state the actual URL of your blog. And I'll, of course, link to it in the show notes that are posted on MedSiter.com. But why don't you go ahead and provide the actual website address for your blog right now?

Sure. It's www. medex.org. Okay. And I'm going to say, for the transcriber, it's Medexec, M-E-D-X-E-C-C-E-C-E-C. That's correct. Got it. Okay. Okay, very good. And the other thing I would, the other thing I encourage people to do is if they get a moment

on LinkedIn to follow our company webpage, I mean, that's where we're often giving updates about new opportunities that we have throughout the country, not only in sales, but, you know, other divisions as well as in marketing. So I encourage people do that as well. To check out the ConMed LinkedIn page. And I, and we didn't really get a chance to touch on this earlier, but I love the fact that you brought up, you know, when I, you know, we brought up the subject of why you're blogging so much. And you mentioned the idea of passive recruiting. And I love that aspect,

because I got to think that there's a lot of people, a lot of sales reps out there that have, maybe are in a culture that that isn't very compelling or doesn't allow, you know, doesn't foster growth and, you know, both on a professional and personal level. And they see what, you know, the sort of stuff that you're writing and they see that your leadership and the culture you're trying to create. And I got to think that that's, you know, that's, you know, a lot of folks to reach out to you directly or reach out to the con med team for, you know, to see what they can do to get involved in your, you know, in what you're doing. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So, all right, cool. Well, for those listening, thanks so much for your listening here. If you want to check out other episodes of MedSider, go to Medsider. You can subscribe to the email list. That's where we notify you, notify you whenever there's a new episode release. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever sort of audio medium you listen to, just search for MedSider, a medical device, or Scott Nelson, and you'll find it.

Pretty easy to subscribe to a number of different ways. Anyway, Sean, I'll have you hold on the line here. But again, thanks for your listening and attention. Until the next episode of MedSider, everyone, take care.