In my previous post (Explaining Medical Sales - Part I), I told you about the difference between capital sales and consumable sales, mainly concentrating on what kinds of products are involved in capital sales. In today’s video, we’ll talk about consumable and service sales as they relate to medical sales, laboratory sales, clinical diagnostics sales, medical equipment sales, pharmaceutical sales, imaging sales, medical device sales, hospital equipment sales, or biotechnology sales.

Consumable sales (remember, like shampoo–something you’ll use up that generally doesn’t require much cash outlay) are things like inject-ables, wound care products (bandages), reagents for the laboratory, sterilization products (although these could be capital), lotions, potions, even aspirin given to patients in the hospital.

The other non-capital sale is a service sale. Even in a consumable sale, the customer can see, hear, and touch the products, but in a service sale they can’t. This kind of sale would cover lab services, off-site imaging, payroll, human resources, even recruiting (like I provide). This is a little bit more difficult sale. You have to demonstrate, or prove the service to them to sell them on it.

Then there’s you: Where do you fit? Are you a hunter or a gatherer? The hunter likes to close the sale most of all, and can be in any of these areas. But this person really likes to get new business, close the deal, and move on…and the higher-dollar the sale, the better. The gatherer is more like a farmer–who wants to tend the field, take some time, plant the seeds, you get it. The gatherer will not mind making many sales calls on a customer, and even enjoys building the relationship. If the sales figures are lower per sale, that’s OK…he or she takes pride in providing quality service to their customer.

So which are you?