Sales Science - Presented by Gunter Wessels

Bill Wagner spent his career building sales organisations in wound care and regenerative tissue, most recently as SVP of Sales at Kerecis, the Icelandic company that turned intact fish skin into a surgical graft for burns and chronic wounds. While much of the category chased the highest reimbursement corner of the outpatient market, Wagner and his team deliberately spread across burn units, surgery and plastics too. When reimbursement in that crowded corner collapsed, the companies that had bet everything on it got hurt. Kerecis did not, and Coloplast acquired the business for up to 1.3 billion dollars.

Bill left in October, on his own terms, not because the business was struggling but because so many former colleagues kept calling to ask how it was done that answering had become a second job. In this conversation he walks through why he refused to be the highest volume solution in any single setting, what he tells first time sales leaders that nobody told him, and why he believes managing the person always beats managing the job. He also gets specific about the discipline behind hiring for culture, not just for a track record, and what it actually sounds like when he tells a rep who missed their number to go find the win under their own roof.

Why spreading across multiple care settings protected Wagner's team when reimbursement shifted
What Coloplast did differently during the acquisition that kept Kerecis intact as a business and a culture
Wagner's approach to managing the person rather than managing the job
How he coaches a rep through a missed target without making the number the whole conversation
Why hiring for future culture matters more than hiring for the strongest resume

Bill Wagner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-wagner-b477b2328/
SVP of Sales, Kerecis
kerecis.com

I hope you enjoy this episode!
If you did, please like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode.
- Gunter and the Sales Science podcast team

Connect with Gunter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunterwessels
Visit the LiquidSMARTS website: https://liquidsmarts.com

Listen to Sales Science on these platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YKEmGWQeBQliIPyY9IJeL
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/sales-science-presented-by-gunter-wessels/id6811084194
Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/09c7f40c-c7b9-4db1-8c15-c72d6b7f18de/sales-science---presented-by-gunter-wessels

#salesscience #medtechsales #commercialengineering #pipelinevelocity #salesleadership
#healthtechsales #medicaldevices #salesstrategy #revenuegrowth #salesenablement
#executivecoaching #b2bsales
Sales Science is a podcast for commercial leaders in high-tech healthcare, medical devices, diagnostic imaging, surgical systems, IVD and drug delivery, who are looking to move pipeline faster and win more of the deals they're already in. Hosted by Dr. Gunter Wessels, founder of LiquidSMARTS and creator of the Pipeline Velocity equation and the Clinical, Operational, Financial Outcomes Framework, each episode treats the sales function as an engineering problem rather than a motivation problem.
Guests are VPs of Sales, Chief Commercial Officers and GMs from across the medtech and life sciences sector, sharing the specific decisions that moved their numbers when a launch, an acquisition, or a stalling pipeline forced their hand. Listeners get frameworks they can apply the same week, not theory.