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Episode 2 – Matt Sweeney
Show Notes: All items in bold are questions I asked, or thoughts I have inserted post podcast.
March 24, 2019
Episode 2 with Matt Sweeney
www.medtronic.com
Google search Medtronic peripheral vascular
Intro: Hello and welcome to another podcast episode for InsideMedDeviceSales. Today you're going to meet Matt Sweeney. Matt is a highly experienced, very clinically sound rep. He got his start in healthcare sales back in 1994 where he was selling billing software and medical supplies. After four years of doing that, he was able to parlay that into his first medical device sales job where he was a territory manager at CR Bard. Following that, Matt had several positions as a territory manager, a district manager, and a regional manager at companies like Abbott Vascular, Medtronic and Fox Hollow. Fox Hollow is an interesting story because it led Matt back to where he is today. Fox Hollow was acquired by a company called EV3, EV3 was subsequently acquired by Covidien and then Covidien was acquired by Medtronic and that's where Matt is today as a peripheral vascular territory manager in Indiana. So without further ado, let's jump in and find out what has made Matt so successful. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Sweeney. Matt, welcome to the podcast, I appreciate you being here and participating.
Matt: Sure, no problem.
Q: So why don't we just jump in by you going back and just tell us a little bit about how you got started in sales, not necessarily medical device sales, unless that was your first sales job, but just how you got into sales.
Matt: Yeah, so I grew up around sales. My Dad has been a lifetime salesman. He worked for Champion, the apparel company, for a long time and then started his own distributorship and his office was in the basement and my mom was his secretary. So I just sort of grew up around sales. And so when I graduated from the University of Missouri with an English degree, my thought was I was going to go to law school and I decided not to do that and just started looking for sales jobs. My dad had a friend who was a regional vice president of a healthcare company in which they sold Medicare billing software and back in 1994 this was new stuff. So Medicare billing software in a Medicare billing package in order to distribute their medical supplies into nursing homes. So you're talking from a supply standpoint, we had 15,000 products anywhere from adult incontinence products all the way to catheters to you name it. And we would sell that at a low price as long as we could sell our software and our Medicare billing package to them. And so my first job was out in Phoenix, Arizona, so I packed up and moved as a junior sales rep back then and I was just running around doing all the grunt work, you know, computer installs, the accounts that were way out in the middle of nowhere. Here is an instance where a junior rep or an associate rep position was used as a starting point. For many, this is a ticket to the dance. There was a couple of them on Indian reservations, wherever the senior rep didn't want to go is where I went. And I reported up through him. I kind of had my own little mini territory with a number, but you know, by and large it really resided underneath him, that's how I got my start in sales.
Q: Okay, so you were not necessarily in med device but you started off in healthcare. Were there any takeaways from that first job that you were able to carry with you and use going forward?
View all episodes
Show Notes: All items in bold are questions I asked, or thoughts I have inserted post podcast.
March 24, 2019
Episode 2 with Matt Sweeney
www.medtronic.com
Google search Medtronic peripheral vascular
Intro: Hello and welcome to another podcast episode for InsideMedDeviceSales. Today you're going to meet Matt Sweeney. Matt is a highly experienced, very clinically sound rep. He got his start in healthcare sales back in 1994 where he was selling billing software and medical supplies. After four years of doing that, he was able to parlay that into his first medical device sales job where he was a territory manager at CR Bard. Following that, Matt had several positions as a territory manager, a district manager, and a regional manager at companies like Abbott Vascular, Medtronic and Fox Hollow. Fox Hollow is an interesting story because it led Matt back to where he is today. Fox Hollow was acquired by a company called EV3, EV3 was subsequently acquired by Covidien and then Covidien was acquired by Medtronic and that's where Matt is today as a peripheral vascular territory manager in Indiana. So without further ado, let's jump in and find out what has made Matt so successful. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Sweeney. Matt, welcome to the podcast, I appreciate you being here and participating.
Matt: Sure, no problem.
Q: So why don't we just jump in by you going back and just tell us a little bit about how you got started in sales, not necessarily medical device sales, unless that was your first sales job, but just how you got into sales.
Matt: Yeah, so I grew up around sales. My Dad has been a lifetime salesman. He worked for Champion, the apparel company, for a long time and then started his own distributorship and his office was in the basement and my mom was his secretary. So I just sort of grew up around sales. And so when I graduated from the University of Missouri with an English degree, my thought was I was going to go to law school and I decided not to do that and just started looking for sales jobs. My dad had a friend who was a regional vice president of a healthcare company in which they sold Medicare billing software and back in 1994 this was new stuff. So Medicare billing software in a Medicare billing package in order to distribute their medical supplies into nursing homes. So you're talking from a supply standpoint, we had 15,000 products anywhere from adult incontinence products all the way to catheters to you name it. And we would sell that at a low price as long as we could sell our software and our Medicare billing package to them. And so my first job was out in Phoenix, Arizona, so I packed up and moved as a junior sales rep back then and I was just running around doing all the grunt work, you know, computer installs, the accounts that were way out in the middle of nowhere. Here is an instance where a junior rep or an associate rep position was used as a starting point. For many, this is a ticket to the dance. There was a couple of them on Indian reservations, wherever the senior rep didn't want to go is where I went. And I reported up through him. I kind of had my own little mini territory with a number, but you know, by and large it really resided underneath him, that's how I got my start in sales.
Q: Okay, so you were not necessarily in med device but you started off in healthcare. Were there any takeaways from that first job that you were able to carry with you and use going forward?