Overview

The year: 2017 ; The place: Mumbai
Keshav Joshi is a 35-year-old Sales Manager at a Medical Device Company that specializes in selling blood banking products to mid and large hospitals. A BSc in Biology, Keshav joined the healthcare sector 10 years ago as a territory sales representative and has gradually grown through the ranks. He lives in Thane, Mumbai with his wife and six year old daughter, Tania.

The Problem

The company has recently partnered with an American company that sells premium blood bags, and Keshav has been tasked with educating and selling it to his set of customers – old and new at mid and large size hospitals across Maharashtra, Gujrat and Madhya Pradesh. Broadly his challenges are as follows:

  • Blood bags a product category with significant competition from Indian and Chinese suppliers and thin margins. Keshav or his competitors must sell hundreds of units of these bags to meet sales targets.
  • In this case the doctor Keshav is pursuing also runs a large size hospital. Hospitals don’t like to switch vendors easily. It requires them to invest time in learning about the competing product and testing it out on some patients before adopting it.
  • Last but not the least, both the doctor and hospital are extremely cost-conscious, so premium products like Keshav’s, which is 15% costlier than the competition, is always a hardsell.

The Approach

To overcome these challenges, keshav turned to outsell

A sales enablement platform that equips Sales Managers like Keshav with the right set of tools to present product information in interesting ways and to be well-prepared for the meeting with the doctor.

Finally, the much-awaited day came and Keshav met up with the doctor at his hospital.

Just 10 minutes into the meeting, the doctor mentioned that he was using a competing product and there was no motivation to switch to Keshav’s.

Keshav had clearly anticipated this.

He launched the Outsell app on his phone to show the doctor a Comparison Chart of the company’s products against all its competitors. The parameters were classified on technical superiority, pricing, ease of use, warranty terms & conditions and Customer support. The doctor could also access a “How To Use” module that illustrated step-by-step the functionality of the product.

Using the Briefcase feature, which houses all the Product Data in one place, in Outsell, Keshav could clearly demonstrate key benefits of the product such as:

Technical Specifications:

It’s high shelf-life resulted in savings of 35% over a year which was huge even for a premium Hospital like this one

Ease of Use:

The ease of installation and handling these bags made it convenient for nursing staff, thereby resulting in a reduction in operating time by 25%.

Warranty:

The extended warranty meant fewer replacements that had to be paid for, which further resulted in cost savings of 15%

RoI:

The overall RoI from the product was higher compared to the competition and this was a deal-clincher for the doctor, who had originally perceived it as costly.

The Outcome

THANKS TO HIS EFFORTS:

  • The doctor was convinced and introduced him to the Purchase Manager at the hospital. Keshav could procure a bulk order which overshot his target for that quarter.
  • The doctor introduced him to a couple of other doctors and hospitals he consults at, and this built up a significant pipeline for the next 2 quarters for Keshav.
  • Keshav’s company appreciated his innovativeness, promoted him as Asst. Regional Manager, and put in-charge of a much larger territory in the Western region. Keshav’s account win is a Case Study not only at Outsell, but also at his company.

Like Keshav, many Sales Managers before him have discovered that merely having information doesn’t help. The way it is packaged, or presented, makes all the difference while clinching a difficult deal. And that is precisely what Outsell helps them achieve.

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