Your Time or Your Life. Time-Management Challenge of Medical Sales, and How to Fix it.
Eslam Khaled
Purpose-driven medical sales professional. coaching med reps to improve performance, develop skills, and build remarkable careers.
"Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed." Peter Drucker
When I got into medical sales, I thought that this was just a normal job that happens to pay a lot of money!
How naive can one be?!!
After tipping my toe into the field I experienced firsthand how meaningful and fulfilling medical sales can be, but also how demanding, overwhelming, and chaotic it can get.
Now, with my 6 years in the industry, I believe that time management is a fundamental skill to succeed in medical sales, yet it's tough to master and implement effectively.
Here are the challenges I've faced and have seen other reps struggle with when it comes to time management and productivity:
1. Unpredictable schedules and reactive environment:
Do you experience any of these in your work week?
This unpredictability can disrupt your schedule even if you've carefully planned everything, leading to wasted time and difficulty staying on track.
And that's why might find yourself scrambling to adjust your day, wasting your time putting out fires rather than proactively managing your workload, leading to inefficiency, frustration, and stress.
2. Overwhelming workload:
You and I know very well the never-ending demands of medical sales:
Without a clear system for managing these tasks, reps can become paralyzed by the sheer volume of work, leading to missed opportunities and a constant sense of playing catch-up.
3. Extensive travel time:
From a hospital to a clinic to a center the long and frequent travel between accounts eats into the limited time available, making it difficult to complete important tasks, and leaving you with little time to focus on revenue-generating activities, strategic planning, or personal development.
4. Never-ending admin tasks:
Paperwork, filling in your CRM, emails, and reporting consume time that could be spent on revenue-generating activities, and most reps struggle to balance administrative duties with their primary sales responsibilities, leading to lower productivity and increased stress.
5. Complex sales cycles:
Unlike other industries, medical sales is really complex and tough to grasp. you need to follow up with end users, decision-makers, the buying committee, and other staff,... etc.
The sales cycle can become more complex and harder to handle with all the intricacies and the different roles involved in the process of buying and using your product.
And to maintain connections and relationships with physicians, nurses, admins, and purchasing departments requires different approaches and time investments.
6. Constant product updates and training:
Keeping up with medical knowledge to cover new products and calling on different specialties can be overwhelming and time-consuming but still essential so that you can properly serve your customers and communicate the value of your products.
7. Quota pressure:
The need to meet sales targets can lead to poor time allocation and short-term thinking.
This can force you to focus on short-term gains and sacrifice long-term strategic wins,
If you lack time management skills, these challenges will lead to stress, burnout, low performance, and inconsistent achievement.
What Can You Do About It?
The first step is acknowledging that time management isn’t just about squeezing more tasks into your day—it’s about making strategic decisions about where your time and energy go, it's about getting the important things done, without stress and overwhelm.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Plan everything but be flexible:
Expect the unexpected, but don't let it dictate your day. Start by blocking off time for critical tasks that can’t be moved, and leave buffer zones for emergencies. This approach allows you to maintain control while accommodating the unpredictable nature of your work.
Prioritize:
Not all tasks are created equal. Learn to distinguish between urgent and important tasks. Tools like Eisenhower’s Urgent-Important Matrix can help in identifying which tasks need immediate attention and which can be delegated or postponed.
Optimize Travel:
Try planning your day in a way that helps you cluster appointments geographically to minimize travel time.
Streamline Administrative Work:
Use technology to automate anything that can be automated, a lot of CRMs offer a lot of automation and easy workflows.
For other tasks try to batch them into specific time blocks to get through them quickly and efficiently.
Always upgrade your skills and knowledge:
Allocate specific times each week for professional development. This not only keeps you at the forefront of industry knowledge but also adds value to your interactions with customers.
Adopt a Long-Term Mindset:
Resist the temptation to chase short-term wins at the expense of long-term success. Instead, invest time in strategic planning and relationship-building that will pay dividends in the future.
Focus on building strong, lasting relationships with key stakeholders. This will save time in the long run, as trust reduces the need for constant follow-up and micromanagement.
Beware Burnout:
Make time for Personal activities that are important to you and ensure you’re not sacrificing your well-being for the sake of your job. and always remember that sustainable success requires a healthy balance.
If you want to get the step-by-step system to implement all these tips, join us in the free live workshop "Time Management and Productivity for Medical Sales Professionals" on Tuesday, Sept. 17th at 2:00 pm EST.
In this webinar, I'll share the frameworks and the tools I use to gain back control over my time and be more productive in medical sales.
Here's the link: