A Winning Formula Allan Staley, president, and Kerry McCarter, CEO, have a process that is anything but touch-and-go. Photo by Paul Chin, Jr.
By Brad McDonald
Selling is a tough business, even when you’re moving a tried and true product. Dealing with prospects’ stalls, trying to keep appointments with those who have little respect for your time, knowing your best clients are being wooed by competition … it’s enough to frustrate even the most seasoned business professional.
Imagine dealing with all that and selling a new product. That’s a significant challenge.
At Soluble Systems in Newport News, CEO Kerry McCarter and President Allan Staley have hit on a winning sales formula, while selling just two products, both very new to the market.
The company manufactures and markets a line of advanced wound care products under the brand names of TheraSkin® and TheraGauze®. These products compete in the U.S. within two large and growing wound care markets, active biologics and synthetic dressings.
Both TheraSkin and TheraGauze are designed to help healthcare professionals treat difficult-to-heal chronic wounds in a healthcare market that is driven more and more to use clinically effective, low-cost products.
Although TheraGauze had been thoroughly tested and proven in laboratory conditions by the end of 2007, there was a lot of work to do to get it accepted in the market place. The target market was medical doctors in wound care centers and group practices that included a podiatrist (both products work especially well on diabetic foot wounds).
The first sales effort used a network of independent medical sales representatives. A typical rep was selling thirty-plus products. You can imagine that these reps were selling on price and selling what was popular.
They weren’t motivated to pull the “new” product out of their bag and invest the time necessary to clinically demonstrate the advantages of TheraGauze. With no active sales effort and nobody asking for something that they didn’t know about, the products sat at the bottom of the sales bag.
In late 2008 McCarter made two course adjustments. The first was to eliminate the independent reps and bring on direct sales reps who were selling only TheraGauze. This proved a bit more successful, however volume still remained low.
Medical professionals who tried the products reported great results but they were not maximizing the full scope of the products’ capabilities.
The problem was that “smarter” sales reps were needed because the doctors were asking sophisticated questions about how to use the bandages. It was not unusual for a doctor to ask the rep, in front of a patient, “How do I use your bandage on this particular wound?” “In fact,” McCarter said, “we learned a lot along the way. The sales rep had to think like an owner of a medical practice.
He had to be able to address concepts and concerns such as:
- How much value will this bring the M.D.?
- How will this product affect his practice?
- Will the M.D. or R.N. have to think or act differently?
- How much time and effort do I need to put into a customer’s practice in order to make this a success for him?
The second adjustment followed the discovery that TheraGauze made a great cover (literally) for bio-engineered skin substitutes (engineered skin grafts).
“M.D.s were using an ineffective $1 gauze to cover a $1,500 bio-engineered skin graft and found that a $10 TheraGauze cover gave them better results. Then we met LifeNet Health and they found that TheraGauze worked well over their human skin allografts. One thing led to another and we entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with them to market TheraSkin in early 2010,” McCarter said.
The next step, one that appears to be working now, was to hire sales reps with a more specific profile in mind. The desired qualifications were: be a “hunter” who can easily prospect for new accounts; possess a technical understanding and working knowledge of biology and chemistry; and be able to hold one’s own in a sophisticated medical discussion. Along the way Staley and McCarter learned a couple of other lessons:
- Hire from startups as these folks are accustomed to making cold calls and doing cold walk-ins.
- Don’t hire from established businesses because those reps are content with small increases in new business, they’re not hungry; they have more of a “farmer” mentality than a “hunter” mindset.
- Don’t keep hunters on a tight leash. The characteristics that make a sales rep strong at prospecting also make him stubborn and independent minded.
- Attrition is inevitable. Hire slowly, fire quickly. Sales people looking for work frequently promise the world. It’s important to remember that most also finish the way they start. If they start slow, the chances of seeing any radically different behavior and results later on is small.
Another significant lesson was the value of a sales manager. It’s tough running a start-up company, introducing new medical products, and trying to manage a sales force on top of that. Sales remained the weak link at Soluble Systems until they hired Stephen Forden as their VP of sales. Forden came from a solid background of sales and sales management in the medical products industry. Today, he monitors the sales reps’ daily activities and holds them accountable for proper sales behaviors and results.
McCarter said, “We failed twice to find the right sales model for what we’re selling.” But now, after three years of creating, evaluating, and adjusting their sales team, Soluble Systems is enjoying rapidly growing sales and revenues. Yes, sales is a tough business, but with the right formula and the right people, McCarter and Staley are up to the challenge.
