Manufacturer Reps to Watch
Taylor Hughes Lusted
Senior Account Manager
Sekisui Diagnostics
Atlanta, Georgia
8 years in medical sales
Primary call point: Physician office
Snapshot
Born/raised: Tampa, Florida/Atlanta, Georgia
Undergraduate degree: Degree in sports management and minor in marketing, University of West Georgia. (Go Wolves!)
First “real” job: There is nothing more “real” than waiting tables. I did so in high school and college, and it was one of the best preparations for a sales career. It teaches you to:
- Build rapport with a variety of customer personalities.
- Prioritize when multi-tasking.
- Pay attention to detail.
- Anticipate the needs of the customer and provide good customer service.
- Improve your problem-solving skills in high-pressure situations.
Complete this sentence: The one thing I did NOT expect when I got into medical sales was/is: To love my career as much as I do.
Family info: I have a wonderful husband – CJ – who I married last March. He played baseball in college and is in real estate. We have three dogs (Lola, Zeus and Ziggy Stardust), a cat (Puss N Boots) and two chickens (Sookie and Albert Einstein). As you can tell, I don’t like animals.
Hobbies/activities: Spending quality time with my family and friends. I am a huge movie buff, and I love kickboxing, the outdoors and kayaking.
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Repertoire: When, how and why did you get into medical sales?
Taylor Hughes Lusted: Growing up, I was always told I should be in sales. Having both parents with sales backgrounds had an impact as well.
Repertoire: Mentor or role model?
Lusted: My role model is my dad, Mike Hughes. He has been in the industry and worked for Midmark Corporation for 32 years. Aside from the impact he has had in my personal life, he is a great inspiration. Growing up, dinner table conversations would sometimes be business situations and how to handle them. Ha!
Repertoire: What are the 2-3 most important things you can do for distributor reps to enhance their sales?
Lusted: 1) Provide clear targets for products. (They only have thousands to sell.)
2) Always answer your phone, text, or email. Respond in a reasonable amount of time. Communication is key!
3) Be the expert on your product portfolio
Repertoire: How can distributor reps help in your sales efforts?
Lusted: I started my medical sales career as a distributor rep, so I understand clearly what they go through on a day-to-day basis. This in turn helps me in my own sales efforts. The most helpful thing is identifying a qualified target and helping me gain access to the decision-maker.
Repertoire: What is the biggest change you anticipate in medical products sales in the next 5 years?
Lusted: There will be a continued emphasis on improving patient care and the patient experience. With patient outcomes on the front line, offices need to focus on utilizing EMR and technology to streamline and help with patient outcomes. Health system consolidation has been prevalent for a while now and will continue to evolve.
Molecular flu is the way of the future; the test is more sensitive and specific, and reimbursements are great. Hospital systems want to keep patients out of the ER and fatalities low with the flu epidemics we have been experiencing. As a society we are becoming more impatient, so point-of-care testing is imperative in a physician office setting.
Repertoire: Ride-days with distributor reps: What’s to like? What’s not to like?
Lusted: I schedule 3-4 ride-days a week with my partners. You can gain access to the decision-maker easier this way, and I genuinely enjoy working with my colleagues. I love being in front of the end user and getting to know the reps on a more personal level. What is not to like? Coffee breath.
Repertoire: Care to share a memorable ride-day story?
Lusted: When I have a day scheduled with a distributor rep, I really look forward to it. The most memorable experience for me has to be the ride-days in The Villages in Florida.