Excellence in Sales
Stephen Raggio looks, listens, learns, then improves his game
Want to learn about B2B sales? Try selling copiers.
“I’ve never heard that many ‘no’s’ in a single day – every day,” says Stephen Raggio about his first sales job, with office equipment maker Ricoh USA. “It builds grit and determination.”
Raggio learned from the experience, then entered medical sales in 2016, and today is an ambulatory care sales representative for Welch Allyn in Louisiana and Mississippi. He is also the recipient of the Repertoire/HIDA Excellence in Sales Award for a manufacturer.
Born and raised in and around New Orleans, Raggio thought about a medical career – but not sales – while in school.
His father, Christopher Raggio, has always been in sales, currently working as a territory manager for Cordstrap, which makes container lashing equipment. His mother, Susan Giurintano, recently retired after a 30-year career working as an office manager for an orthopedic surgeon.
Raggio himself graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in kinesiology and exercise science, and worked as a physical therapy technician while completing his degree. But the more he learned about physical therapy, the more he questioned whether it was his calling.
For one thing, physical therapy involved a lot more administrative work than he had anticipated, he says. “I was more interested in the medical aspects.” For another, he wondered where this career would take him long-term.
Searching
“When I decided not to become a physical therapist, I was stumped on what to do, so I turned to my father for some advice. I knew I wanted to do something in healthcare, and I had heard that medical sales could be a very good field. He told me medical sales was an extremely tough field to break into, but people can excel in it and have very good careers.
“After that conversation, I did tons of research through online forums, my network of friends and their parents, basically anyone who would take five minutes to talk to me about their experience.”
Many of those people told him that B2B sales – cold calling – would be a fast track to medical sales. “The only people who stick it out are those who can hustle, grind, deal with rejection,” they told him. What better proving ground than copier sales?
He called the Ricoh manager. They were hiring. He took the job … and found out that his friends were right.
“I saw a lot of people come onto the sales team, then leave three months later,” he says. “It’s not fun being told ‘No’ or ‘Get out of my office.’ But it definitely taught me discipline.” He maintained a rigid schedule, making as many as 100 cold calls and four meetings a day.
With that experience under his belt, Raggio decided to pursue a career in medical sales, attracted by the opportunity to work independently and to run a territory as his own “business.” “There were also so many different avenues in medical sales,” he says. “I was intrigued by the future possibilities once I broke into the field.” In 2016, he joined Trumpf Medical, a manufacturer of OR equipment.
He loved the job, but saw that advancement in the company would probably mean moving out of state. When an opportunity with Welch Allyn opened up in Louisiana, he threw his hat into the ring. “What was most important to me was staying close to my family and friends, and being able to live in New Orleans,” he says. He was also impressed by the tenure of Welch Allyn representatives, many of whom had been with the company from 10 to 20 years.
“My main goal was to find a position I could treat as a lifelong career, and not another ‘job,’” he says. He joined Welch Allyn in March 2018.
A learner
“One of the very first things that jumped out about Stephen was his coachability,” says Mark York, area vice president, ambulatory care for Welch Allyn. “We all have seen individuals who do a great job listening and seeking advice only to go straight back to their previous habits. Stephen always seems to put a plan around the advice he receives from leadership and peers. I can almost ask him about any conversation we had about a challenging account, and even three to four months later he will tell me the strategy he put in place after our discussion, and the next steps involved.
“His contributions to our team discussions are always well thought out and have a lot of actionable items the team can feed off of. But more important, he constantly seeks information from his peers. I love the fact that he can have the results he has, lead with so much information, but remain humbled enough to continue to learn from the rest of the team.”
Raggio works with over 50 distributor representatives on a weekly basis, and continually targets strategic IDN and large end-user clinical groups as well, says York. “He has taken a role that historically has been very transactional and has adapted to the changing healthcare market to make his efforts much more strategic.” What’s more, he has found a way to break down walls and penetrate difficult accounts, he adds.
“The most important thing I have learned with distribution is to be reliable, trustworthy and professional,” says Raggio. That means returning phone calls and emails promptly, providing regular updates on Welch Allyn equipment and how it can be of value to customers, and to follow through on things he has promised.
“I ensure the customer is always No. 1 and always taken care of, because at the end of the day, [my distributors’] customers are my customers. If the customer is happy, they will continue to work with my distributors, and my distributors in turn will continue to support me. Distributors have much better relationships with customers than I do, so when I am brought in, it is my job to keep their relationship intact and, hopefully, make it even stronger than before.”
Mentors
Raggio says he could name many people who have mentored him since graduating from college, including people he currently speaks with for advice. Some of them are:
- Ryan Stropolo, “a Stryker representative who also worked for Ricoh a few years before me, who taught me the importance of standing out in my first B2B job at Ricoh in order to leverage that experience to break into the medical field. He also helped me immensely in the medical device interview process.”
- Brent Pasquarella, a competing copier rep out of Florida, “who helped me immensely in sticking to my goals during my time at Ricoh and worked with me through role plays, business planning, etc.”
- TJ Corkery, with Trumpf Medical, who “taught me how to effectively cold call and create value for the customer and build strong, lasting relationships with my customers.”
- Matt Gleason with Welch Allyn, who had Raggio’s territory in Louisiana almost five years ago. “I still speak to him multiple times almost every week about current customers, understanding the territory, getting advice on working with my distribution partners, etc. He is always available to me and I cannot put enough emphasis on how much I value his help and insights.”
- The entire Welch Allyn team in the South Central Region. “I have talks with each of these individuals on a regular basis, and I can ask them anything and get a very quick response. … They have been instrumental in getting me up to speed and allowing me to understand the business.”
Raggio has two brothers: Daniel, who works for JP Morgan in Dallas; and Blake, an ENT doctor who at press time was about to begin his fellowship in facial plastics.
Raggio’s fiancée, Layne Neitzschman, is in physician assistant school at LSU Health in Shreveport. The two plan on getting married in December 2019.