InsideMedDeviceSales

Episode 5  Sam Adams

 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-adams-88044b89/

 

00:00:00 - 00:05:09

 

INTRO:                  Hello and welcome to the podcast for InsideMedDeviceSales. My name is Pat, I am your host, and it is my responsibility to introduce you to some people that can help you get to where you want to go. We are going to meet current medical device reps and learn how they got started, what the process was like for them, what their day to day activity is like, and what some of their biggest challenges are. We'll also hear about some interesting cases that did not go as planned. We will also speak with hiring managers where I will get to ask how they select candidates, what they look for, and how candidates can stand out over the competition. I will also introduce you to medical device recruiters. We will learn about the role they play in the process, different ways to highlight your strengths as a candidate, and the things all candidates should stop doing. Lastly, we are going to be speaking with the physicians that look to their reps for support. We will hear what it is they appreciate about their reps and the things great reps do to add value to cases. So thanks for being here, let's get started.

INTRO to SAM: Hello and welcome to another podcast episode for InsideMedDeviceSales. Today, I have the privilege of introducing you to Sam Adams. Sam has been in medical device sales now for two years, so I very much appreciate his perspective on the space. But I have to tell you, the creativity and the vigor with which he went after his first position in med device sales is just fantastic. It's pure genius. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Sam Adams.

Pat:        Alright Sam, thanks for being on the podcast, I appreciate you being here.

Sam:      Hey, no, my pleasure, excited to be here.

Q:           So why don't we just start off by you sharing how you got started in sales. Was medical device your first sales job, or how did you get started?

Sam:      So yes, medical device was my first sales job, I got in actually right out of college. I was very lucky and fortunate. You know sales has always been in my family, my mom and dad have both been in sales. And I was really pushed, my mom works for another big medical device company, and I was very fortunate to kind of have her help and guidance. I feel like it's a career and a profession that not too many people know about, but I was lucky to know about it through my mom, and I started thinking about it as a freshman in college. I went into college saying I’m going to be a doctor, a bio major, all that and I kind of realized that wasn't the right path for me. I kind of wanted to be in more of a relationship driven role where I'm kind of, I guess kind of more of interacting with people is a better way to say it. And so a combination of that interest in medicine as well as the interest in sales kind of drove me to the medical device profession.

Q:           Okay, awesome. You said you started thinking about this as a freshman in college. Did you ever consider anything else, or did you have this set as where you were going to be?

Sam:      I was dead set that this is where I was going to be and I was not going to take a job out of college until I got into the medical device space. And I think I ended up waiting about probably six months after I graduated to get in. You know, people were saying you're crazy, you should just get another sales job before,

Episode 4  Tom Catalano

 

tkcatalano@gmaiLcom

https://www.cameron-brooks.com/

 

00:00:13 - 00:05:03

 

Intro:     Hello and welcome to the podcast for InsideMedDeviceSales. My name is Pat, I am your host, and it is my responsibility to introduce you to some people that can help you get to where you want to go. We're going to meet current medical device reps and learn how they got started, what the process was like for them, what their day to day activity is like, and what some of their biggest challenges are. We'll also hear about some interesting cases that did not go as planned. We will also speak with hiring managers where I will get to ask how they select candidates, what they look for, and how candidates can stand out over the competition? I will also introduce you to medical device recruiters. We will learn about the role they play in the process, different ways to highlight your strengths as a candidate, and the things all candidates should stop doing. Lastly, we're going to be speaking with the physicians that look to their reps for support. We will hear what it is they appreciate about their reps and the thing great reps do to add value to cases. So thanks for being here, let's get started.

Pat:        Welcome to another podcast episode for InsideMedDeviceSales. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Tom Catalano. Tom graduated from Purdue back in 1992 and immediately went into the military, where he was a Captain of the Infantry in the United States Marine Corps. After a seven-year career in the Marine Corps, Tom was able to step immediately into a medical device sales role when he joined Ethicon, which is a division of Johnson & Johnson. From there, Tom joined Medtronic as a sales rep in both the coronary and the peripheral vascular spaces. Following Medtronic, he joined Fox Hollow as a district sales manager in two different locations. After Fox Hollow, he was able to have the privilege of working for a couple of different startup companies in different roles as a sales rep, territory manager, and a Director of Sales. Following that, he rejoined Medtronic back in 2010 as a senior territory sales manager in the peripheral vascular space where he stayed for five years until jumping over to a new division in Medtronic, or I should say a different division within Medtronic, in the neurovascular space as a senior territory sales manager. Tom shares some great insight on possible companies to target to break into medical device sales, as well as sharing his vast experience on how to be successful once you make it into the space. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Tom Catalano.

Pat:        Tom, thanks for joining the podcast, I appreciate you being here.

Tom:      Glad to be here.

Pat:        I'm actually excited to talk to you because I know, well first of all, you’ve got a ton of great experience in the space so I'm interested to hear about that. But I also think you're doing it in a fascinating space too. It's something that I honestly don't know that much about so I am excited to learn more about It.

Tom:      Great, happy to discuss it with you today. Currently I'm in the neurovascular space. It's the interventional space, essentially, what that means is everything we do is through the blood channels of the body. So instead of traditional surgery where a physician would cut down and open up the chest and do a surgical procedure we generally access the femoral arteries, which are down above the hip joint, and the physicians will tunnel in with wires and catheters and, as you can imagine, the bloodstream goes throughout the body. So my current space is neurovascular, but I have experience in cardiovascular and all peripheral vascular,

Show Notes: All items in bold are questions I asked, or thoughts I have inserted post podcast.

 

 

Episode 3 - Jeff George

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-george-7a980b1/

www.medtronic.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/MedtronicCorp

https://www.youtube.com/user/MedtronicCardiac

 

00:00:00 - 00:05:02

 

Hello and welcome to the podcast for inside med device sales. My name is Pat, I am your host and it is my responsibility to introduce you to some people that can help you get to where you want to go. We are going to meet current medical device reps and learn how they got started. What the process was like for them what their day to day activity is like and what some of their biggest challenges are. We'll also hear about some interesting cases that did not go as planned. We will also speak with hiring managers where I will get to ask how they select candidates, what they look for, and how candidates can stand out over the competition? I will also introduce you to medical device recruiters. We will learn about the role they play in the process, different ways to highlight your strengths as a candidate, and the things all candidates should stop doing. Lastly, we're going to be speaking with the physicians that look to their reps for support. We will hear what it is they appreciate about their reps and the thing great reps do to add value to cases. So thanks for being here, let's get started.

Hello, and welcome to another podcast episode for InsideMedDeviceSales.  Today, I have the distinct privilege of introducing you to Jeff George. Jeff got his medical device sales career started back in 1992 when he worked for a company called Valley Lab, which I believe was later acquired by Covidian. Following that, he moved to Intuitive Surgical, which is the leader in robotic assisted surgery, which is another very technical sale. Following that Jeff moved to Medtronic in 2004 in the Cardiac Rhythm Management division, where he has been for the last fifteen years selling pacemakers, defibrillators, and heart failure devices. Jeff is going to provide some great insight on to things that he does to distinguish himself from his competitors, and things he does to add value to his physicians and the staff that he works with. He's also going to shed some light onto the lifestyle that is medical device sales, particularly if you are in a role where you take call. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Jeff, George.

Pat:        Jeff, welcome to the podcast, thanks for being here.

Jeff:       Thanks.

Pat:        I'm actually thrilled that you're here. The reason for that is a couple things. One, you've got some fantastic experience, which I'm sure some people are going to benefit from that experience. But from a medical device sales standpoint, and I'm sure there's some people out there that would argue about this, but I would say you and your role, what you do, you're at the top of the food chain. And there are some different reasons for that and we'll get into that in a little bit. But from an engagement standpoint, from a responsibility standpoint, I would say your role is about at the pinnacle of medical device sales. So thanks for being here.

Jeff:       Thank you.

Q:           Can you share with us how you actually got into sales, not necessarily medical device sales,

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?

March 21, 2019

 

Episode 1 with Jeff Kordenbrock

 

www.wingmanrecruiting.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkordenbrock/

 

Jeff started his career in the United States Military where he was an attack helicopter pilot and platoon leader in the US Army. I realize it would be difficult to drop everything, join the military, only to hope that it would lead to a career in medical device sales four or five years down the road. However, if you happen to have military experience and you are wondering what the next phase of your career holds for you, the medical device space could be a good option. Jeff is not the first person I have crossed paths with in medical device sales that has a military background. Much like Jeff, many of these individuals are now leading Divisions or entire companies.

Jeff’s medical device sales career began at CR Bard where he was a territory manager. I do not have any personal experience with Bard, but I do know at least one other person who got their start in medical device sales at CR Bard. If you are looking to break in to this field, it may behoove you to look at those companies that have a history of hiring those without specific medical device experience. Ethicon, a division of J&J, is another company with a history of hiring individuals with no medical device sales experience. These companies typically have an extensive training program. Just keep in mind that this training can be focused on the clinical aspect of the job and not necessarily the sales aspect.

Jeff then moved into the cardiovascular space when he joined Guidant as a sales rep. Guidant’s primary business was in the cardiac rhythm management space, which includes implantable pacemakers, defibrillators, and heart failure devices. Jeff then moved into a Regional Sales Manager role followed by a Manager of Internal Recruiting and Talent Management. He then became a Director of Sales in the cardiac rhythm management division before moving into the Director of Corporate Accounts and Healthcare Solutions, which is typically responsible for large IDN and GPO sales. Guidant was later acquired by Boston Scientific.

Jeff subsequently left Boston Scientific to become the Vice President of Sales for the Eastern Area in the Neuromodulation division at St. Jude Medical (remember when I said a few people with military experience are now leading divisions and entire companies?).  St. Jude Medical was later acquired by Abbott.

Jeff left St. Jude to start his own recruiting firm, Wingman Recruiting Group.

 

 

 

Q: How did you get to where you are?

Jeff: Luck and timing. I was a Cobra attack helicopter pilot in the Army. I got out as a captain after five years and was lucky enough to get picked up by a medical device sales company. This is my opinion, but I believe luck happens when opportunity crosses paths with preparation. Jeff’s experience in the military prepared him for a career in medical device sales. I mean seriously, after flying attack Cobra helicopters, do you really think Jeff was going to be intimidated by standing in the OR and having a surgeon yell at him? Uh, no. Side note, not all surgeons yell. I started with a small laparoscopic surgical instrument company, which was later acquired. I eventually ended up at a company called Guidant. I was at Guidant for sixteen years on the cardiac rhythm management side in sales and sales leadership positions.