Sales

Q. How can we sell to doctors when they will only give us a few minutes of their time? A. One of the biggest challenges for the HME salesperson is to get in front of the doctor. Winning over the office staff or proverbial "gatekeeper" is usually the first step to actually meeting with the doctor. In many cases, you only get a chance to speak with the doctor while he is in between patients. Even if the doctor is not seeing patients, they typically do not give a lot of presentation time to the HME salesperson. This means there is only a couple of minutes to get your point across to the doctor. Every HME salesperson must be prepared to perform what I call the "Two Minute In-Service." The "Two Minute In-Service" simply means the HME salesperson should be able to accomplish his sales presentation in less than two minutes. This must be rehearsed to the point that the salesperson can perform it at anytime and it flows naturally. If the doctor understands the benefits of what is being conveyed in this short amount of time, the salesperson will succeed in getting patient referrals. When designing the Two Minute In-Service, start by creating bullet points of the most important issues that are to be conveyed. As an example, if your goal is to get more manual wheelchair referrals from a particular doctor, your bullet points may look like this: * HME company info * Specialists in patient mobility equipment * Concerns about patients at risk for falls * Patients using walkers may now need a manual wheelchair * Required documentation * Easy referral process Company management should periodically ask their salespeople to perform the Two Minute In-Service for them. These random performances will maintain sharp selling skills for the salesperson. Bill Kleiman is the author of "Success Made Easy in DME Sales." Reach him at 800-460-1967 or log onto his Web site, www.getthatbiz.com.