Brian Colbey
Senior sales specialist
Abbott Point of Care
Repertoire: What are the two or three most important things you can do for your distributor rep partners to enhance their sales?
Brian Colbey: Follow up, follow up, follow up.
- Customers live in an iPhone world, where information is easily accessible 24 hours a day. As such, they expect an immediate response from their distribution partners. Manufacturer partners need to be equally accessible, and assist in providing that information.
- Follow-through, that is, doing what you will say you will do. Credibility and honesty are not easily earned, but easily lost. Following through on commitments is crucial.
- Finally, being as knowledgeable as possible about your product portfolio, about state and national regulations and their impact on running an in-house lab, and knowing how your product can help improve their practice by providing better patient outcomes.
Repertoire: Name two or three ways distributor reps can help you add value to their accounts and increase sales.
Colbey:
- Pre-call planning. When distributor partners spend time with their manufacturer partners discussing targets and mapping out their schedule, everyone is better for it. You give me a breakfast or lunch to discuss what we are looking for, and I will leverage that into a successful ride day.
- A follow-up to that is, when scheduling time with a potential customer, a little pre-qualification goes a long way (e.g., number of patients per day, payer mix, why they may be interested, what concerns they may have). This allows us to arrive at the meeting with solutions.
Repertoire: What is the biggest change you anticipate in medical product sales in the next five years?
Colbey: With the consolidation of health systems and the growth of IDNs, practices will be forced to focus more on patient satisfaction and compliance rather than the old reimbursement/fee-for-service model. ROI selling will no longer be applicable.
Repertoire: What do you like/dislike about ride-days with distributor reps?
Colbey: Ride-days are an important way to build momentum with my distributor reps. In general, getting the opportunity to get to know them better, see their accounts from their perspective and understanding what really drives their sales is crucial to running a strong territory. I firmly believe that by developing these relationships, I have been able to bridge the gap in my territory, allowing for success here at Abbott, and gaining some true friends within this industry.
Repertoire: Do you think distributor reps should embrace ride days?
Colbey: Distributors have so many products in their bag (200,000 on average), that they can’t be experts on any. The best way to provide value to their customers is to bring in the product expert (manufacturer partner), and thus give them the full scope of what is available to their practice. Ride days are the easiest way to accomplish this goal.
Repertoire: Do you have a favorite ride-day story?
Colbey: I went into an account with a South Jersey distribution rep a while back, and when we told them we were there to discuss Abbott products, they brought us right back to the office manager. We were both very excited, as it was a cold call. Little did we know that they wanted to speak with us because they had a previous problem with another division of Abbott. Let me tell you, they really let us have it as to why they were so dissatisfied. We listened to their issues, and allowed them to vent.
Afterwards, we asked them if they would allow us to work on a solution to their problem, and if we could fix it, then perhaps they would give our product a look. After doing a ton of work, with no guarantee of a close, we came up with a solution for their problem. The account was so pleased, they decided to purchase two Piccolo units and signed a volume commitment for reagents for over $200,000 per year. That close represents one of the larger reagent closes for a single user, and it came from a highly dissatisfied customer off of a cold call. Needless to say, it was one of the closes I am most proud of; that it came with one of my favorite reps just makes it that much sweeter.