Description
Selling is a lot easier if you have a good product. Getting back to selling yourself, no amount of salesmanship is going to work if you don’t meet the minimum qualifications.
D
uring the course of my career I have heard many
biomeds say, “I could never be a salesperson!”
But the fact of the matter is you can’t lead your
department to a higher level of value within your organi-
zation without some basic sales skills, and when you are
trying to move your department or an initiative forward,
particularly when it involves an up-front investment of
money or trust from your organization, your sales skills
had better be well honed.
Being a good “salesman” for most of us started when
we were ?rst interviewing and selling ourselves for our
past and current positions. Zig Ziglar, a world-renowned
motivator and leader in sales training, refers to sales
people as professional persuaders. At various points in
time, you will need to be persuasive to your boss, your
staff, your co-workers, your customers, your administra-
tion, your ?nance of?cers, etc., so learning these skills
will serve you well in any position. Having had the op-
portunity and the privilege to get to know many excellent
“persuaders,” I have learned many of the attributes that
have made them successful and can also help you reach
new heights.
1. Have a product worth selling. Selling is a lot
easier if you have a good product. Getting back to
selling yourself, no amount of salesmanship is going
to work if you don’t meet the minimum quali?ca-
tions. Likewise, if an idea or program you’re trying
to promote doesn’t bring signi?cant value to your
organization, it’s not going to go far. In the case
of promoting your department, make sure that you
are doing everything you can to make it better than
the competition. Then you won’t be able to contain
your enthusiasm and pride, and promoting yourself
and your department will be a snap.
2. Be committed. Any salesperson I’ve ever met who
enjoyed long-term success has worked his or her tail
off to do whatever was necessary to meet the needs
of his or her customers—and often those needs ex-
tended beyond normal working hours. Hard work
is part of the equation for any formula for success.
You also need to believe in what you are selling—to
the point where you will put yourself out there and
take some risks to make your idea a reality.
3. Be polished. This involves a number of different
facets: looking the part, being well spoken and ar-
ticulate, and being able to write well.
• First and foremost, it is important to look the
part. Fair or not, most people do indeed judge a
book by its cover. I’ve often told my leadership
staff that it is much easier to walk into a situation
looking like you are competent and professional
and have to work your way down from there,
than to give a ?rst impression that you are not
competent and professional and have to work
your way up. In some cases you may not even be
given the opportunity to work your way up, so
why take the chance?
• Another component is being well spoken and
articulate. For many people this is the most dif?-
cult thing to master since they’d rather get a root
canal without anesthetic than engage in public
speaking of any kind. Many organizations offer
classes on presentation skills. Take them! Look
for opportunities to speak, and take advantage of
Check Points
Everyone who wants to see his or her business or
department achieve or be recognized should develop
the following attributes of good salesmanship:
Have a product worth selling.
Be committed.
Be polished.
Do your homework.
Know your audience and what is important to
them.
Tap into available sales training resources.
Familiarize yourself with presentation tools.
Be persistent.
Deliver what you sell.
Follow up.
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Te Importance of Good Salesmanship
Alan Gresch
116 March/April 2009
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
them. Practice the skill, and you will get better
at it. Eventually you may even reach the point
where you don’t sweat! The May/June 2008 is-
sue of BI&T includes an article by David Braeu-
tigam entitled “Speak Up: A Guide to Improving
Your Public Speaking Skills” that includes tips
on how to enhance your public speaking skills. I
can’t emphasize enough how important this is to
your long-term success and upward mobility.
• Pay attention to the development of your writ-
ten presentation skills as well. In many cases, an
executive summary may be your only opportu-
nity to get an idea in front of someone, and you
want to make the most of that opportunity.
I highly recommend books such as Real World 101 by
James Calano and Jeff Salzman, Speak and Get Results
by Sandy Linver, and Writing with Precision by Jefferson
Bates as good resources to help you develop in all of
these areas.
4. Do your homework. Know your product/pro-
posal inside and out. Know the potential pitfalls
and plan how to deal with them. Like developing a
good business plan, you need to identify strengths,
weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. Anticipate
potential questions and opposition, and have the
answers ready and rehearsed. Bounce your proposal
off other trusted professionals, and ask for feedback
to identify as many of those potential questions or
pitfalls as possible. This is also a great way to devel-
op relationships within and outside the organiza-
tion and get other leaders to know you as someone
who makes things happen. Jeffrey Gitomer, another
well-known sales trainer and author, said, “It’s not
who you know, it’s who knows you.”
5. Know your audience and what is important
to them. Don’t try to sell a program to a clinical
department based on cost savings or productivity
gains. Because they are focused on patient care, you
won’t strike a chord with them on that basis. In-
stead, focus on the positive impacts on patient care
and/or patient safety. (And oh, by the way, as a side
bene?t, we’ll save a million dollars and increase
productivity by 30%.) Likewise, don’t try to sell a
program to ?nance departments based on clinical
enhancements because they will want to know what
the impact is to the bottom line. (And oh, by the
way, as a side bene?t, the program will also have all
these positive impacts on patient care.) With either
group, have data handy that will support your case.
Remember, with some projects you may need to make
your proposal with several different groups before you
can move forward, so tailor your presentations for each
speci?c group. I strongly recommend that even after
getting support from the top, you identify all potential
parties who might be affected, including your own staff,
and “make your sale” to get their support as well. It will
make buy-in much easier, and they may have some good
ideas to enhance your initiative. Everyone wants to know,
“What’s in it for me?” Figure out what that is for each
group, and make sure they understand the bene?ts that
affect them.
6. Tap into available sales training resources. It’s
what Stephen Covey calls “sharpening the saw.”
There are many excellent books, videos, and CDs
available that can help you hone your sales skills.
Some of the best are
• Sales 101: What Every Successful Sales Professional
Needs to Know and Secrets of Closing the Sale by
Zig Ziglar, who has also has written great books
on goals and motivation
• The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to
Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, In?uence, and Sell
Your Point of View to Others by Jeffrey Gitomer
• High Trust Selling by Todd Duncan
• The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople
by Stephen Schiffman
7. Familiarize yourself with presentation tools.
Getting a presentation or proposal in the right
format to present is sometimes as important as the
content itself. Knowing how to use PowerPoint,
Excel graphs, Visio
®
, or other ?owchart software
are keys to creating a professional-looking presen-
tation that can really enhance the impact of your
proposals. A couple of years ago we were putting
together a major presentation for the ?nance and
human resources departments and senior adminis-
tration in our organization to try to get support for
a signi?cant initiative we were undertaking. One of
my staff was a wizard at using Adobe Photoshop
®
,
and the resulting map slides that he created made
the point of what we were trying to accomplish so
clear that the impact of those slides on our overall
presentation cannot be overstated. Another upside
is that these programs are also fun to experiment
with. Most organizations offer basic and advanced
classes on these programs to help you get started,
Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology 117
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Alan Gresch
118 March/April 2009
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
The Importance of Good Salesmanship
and all offer great tutorials if you prefer to learn on
your own. One caution: Be careful not to get too
caught up with using animation and sounds. They
tend to be distracting rather than add any real value
to the point you are trying to make. As always, the
“KISS” (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle applies.
Two good references in this area are How to Prepare,
Stage, and Deliver Winning Presentations by Thomas
Leech and Effective Presentation: How to Create
and Deliver a Winning Presentation by Ros Jay and
Antony Jay.
8. Be persistent. Sometimes an idea falls on deaf
ears because the timing isn’t right. Sometimes it is
because the idea wasn’t directed at the right set of
ears. Sometimes it is because there was something
lacking in the presentation. Do not give up. Figure
out why it didn’t sell, and go back at it again. Calvin
Coolidge supposedly said, “Nothing in the world
can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men
with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is
almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is
full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determi-
nation alone are omnipotent.”
9. Deliver what you sell. If you ever hope to make
a second sale or get support for another opportu-
nity within your organization, this is every bit as
important as the sale. You’ve all likely dealt with a
salesperson who vanishes after the sale or dealt with
a product that failed to deliver what you thought
you were promised. Did you give that guy another
opportunity? How does that saying go? “Fool
me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on
me.” It all starts with not overselling. Do not make
promises you aren’t 100% sure you can keep. Be
relatively conservative in your projections, and do
not—under any circumstances—fail to deliver on
your commitments. Your long-term success de-
pends on it. Don’t make excuses; just do whatever
it takes to live up to your commitments. Every time
you do, it builds credibility, and it makes the next
sale easier. Over time, your promises will be like
money in the bank to the leaders in your organi-
zation, and that is exactly where you want to be.
This idea might cause some to not take a chance at
all. Don’t be one of those people. The rewards are
worth the risk.
10. Follow up. The really good salespeople always fol-
low up with a card or an e-mail message, thanking
the person or people they met with for the oppor-
tunity and outlining in writing what was agreed on
with speci?c time lines. This works well for both
sides in that you clarify what you committed to
deliver by when, as well as what you need from the
other party in order to meet your commitments.
Adopt these practices, and very quickly you and your
team will ?nd yourselves more valued in your organiza-
tion. As a result, you’ll be more engaged, motivated, and
will be establishing goals based on what is most impor-
tant to making your organization successful, thus further
ensuring your own success. Now go out and sell! n
Alan Gresch is the corporate manager
of clinical engineering at Aurora Health
Care, a 13-hospital system in eastern
Wisconsin, and has over 30 years of
experience in clinical engineering.
Certification in Clinical Engineering
(CCE) Exam
Visit www.acce-htf.org/certi?cation/ for
handbook, application and more information.
Email [email protected] if you have any questions.
Exam Date November 7, 2009
US Application Deadline August 14, 2009
For those taking the exam within the US & Canada
International Application
Deadline July 17, 2009
For those taking the exam outside the US & Canada
doc_600178879.pdf
Selling is a lot easier if you have a good product. Getting back to selling yourself, no amount of salesmanship is going to work if you don’t meet the minimum qualifications.
D
uring the course of my career I have heard many
biomeds say, “I could never be a salesperson!”
But the fact of the matter is you can’t lead your
department to a higher level of value within your organi-
zation without some basic sales skills, and when you are
trying to move your department or an initiative forward,
particularly when it involves an up-front investment of
money or trust from your organization, your sales skills
had better be well honed.
Being a good “salesman” for most of us started when
we were ?rst interviewing and selling ourselves for our
past and current positions. Zig Ziglar, a world-renowned
motivator and leader in sales training, refers to sales
people as professional persuaders. At various points in
time, you will need to be persuasive to your boss, your
staff, your co-workers, your customers, your administra-
tion, your ?nance of?cers, etc., so learning these skills
will serve you well in any position. Having had the op-
portunity and the privilege to get to know many excellent
“persuaders,” I have learned many of the attributes that
have made them successful and can also help you reach
new heights.
1. Have a product worth selling. Selling is a lot
easier if you have a good product. Getting back to
selling yourself, no amount of salesmanship is going
to work if you don’t meet the minimum quali?ca-
tions. Likewise, if an idea or program you’re trying
to promote doesn’t bring signi?cant value to your
organization, it’s not going to go far. In the case
of promoting your department, make sure that you
are doing everything you can to make it better than
the competition. Then you won’t be able to contain
your enthusiasm and pride, and promoting yourself
and your department will be a snap.
2. Be committed. Any salesperson I’ve ever met who
enjoyed long-term success has worked his or her tail
off to do whatever was necessary to meet the needs
of his or her customers—and often those needs ex-
tended beyond normal working hours. Hard work
is part of the equation for any formula for success.
You also need to believe in what you are selling—to
the point where you will put yourself out there and
take some risks to make your idea a reality.
3. Be polished. This involves a number of different
facets: looking the part, being well spoken and ar-
ticulate, and being able to write well.
• First and foremost, it is important to look the
part. Fair or not, most people do indeed judge a
book by its cover. I’ve often told my leadership
staff that it is much easier to walk into a situation
looking like you are competent and professional
and have to work your way down from there,
than to give a ?rst impression that you are not
competent and professional and have to work
your way up. In some cases you may not even be
given the opportunity to work your way up, so
why take the chance?
• Another component is being well spoken and
articulate. For many people this is the most dif?-
cult thing to master since they’d rather get a root
canal without anesthetic than engage in public
speaking of any kind. Many organizations offer
classes on presentation skills. Take them! Look
for opportunities to speak, and take advantage of
Check Points
Everyone who wants to see his or her business or
department achieve or be recognized should develop
the following attributes of good salesmanship:
Have a product worth selling.
Be committed.
Be polished.
Do your homework.
Know your audience and what is important to
them.
Tap into available sales training resources.
Familiarize yourself with presentation tools.
Be persistent.
Deliver what you sell.
Follow up.
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Te Importance of Good Salesmanship
Alan Gresch
116 March/April 2009
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
them. Practice the skill, and you will get better
at it. Eventually you may even reach the point
where you don’t sweat! The May/June 2008 is-
sue of BI&T includes an article by David Braeu-
tigam entitled “Speak Up: A Guide to Improving
Your Public Speaking Skills” that includes tips
on how to enhance your public speaking skills. I
can’t emphasize enough how important this is to
your long-term success and upward mobility.
• Pay attention to the development of your writ-
ten presentation skills as well. In many cases, an
executive summary may be your only opportu-
nity to get an idea in front of someone, and you
want to make the most of that opportunity.
I highly recommend books such as Real World 101 by
James Calano and Jeff Salzman, Speak and Get Results
by Sandy Linver, and Writing with Precision by Jefferson
Bates as good resources to help you develop in all of
these areas.
4. Do your homework. Know your product/pro-
posal inside and out. Know the potential pitfalls
and plan how to deal with them. Like developing a
good business plan, you need to identify strengths,
weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. Anticipate
potential questions and opposition, and have the
answers ready and rehearsed. Bounce your proposal
off other trusted professionals, and ask for feedback
to identify as many of those potential questions or
pitfalls as possible. This is also a great way to devel-
op relationships within and outside the organiza-
tion and get other leaders to know you as someone
who makes things happen. Jeffrey Gitomer, another
well-known sales trainer and author, said, “It’s not
who you know, it’s who knows you.”
5. Know your audience and what is important
to them. Don’t try to sell a program to a clinical
department based on cost savings or productivity
gains. Because they are focused on patient care, you
won’t strike a chord with them on that basis. In-
stead, focus on the positive impacts on patient care
and/or patient safety. (And oh, by the way, as a side
bene?t, we’ll save a million dollars and increase
productivity by 30%.) Likewise, don’t try to sell a
program to ?nance departments based on clinical
enhancements because they will want to know what
the impact is to the bottom line. (And oh, by the
way, as a side bene?t, the program will also have all
these positive impacts on patient care.) With either
group, have data handy that will support your case.
Remember, with some projects you may need to make
your proposal with several different groups before you
can move forward, so tailor your presentations for each
speci?c group. I strongly recommend that even after
getting support from the top, you identify all potential
parties who might be affected, including your own staff,
and “make your sale” to get their support as well. It will
make buy-in much easier, and they may have some good
ideas to enhance your initiative. Everyone wants to know,
“What’s in it for me?” Figure out what that is for each
group, and make sure they understand the bene?ts that
affect them.
6. Tap into available sales training resources. It’s
what Stephen Covey calls “sharpening the saw.”
There are many excellent books, videos, and CDs
available that can help you hone your sales skills.
Some of the best are
• Sales 101: What Every Successful Sales Professional
Needs to Know and Secrets of Closing the Sale by
Zig Ziglar, who has also has written great books
on goals and motivation
• The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way: How to
Speak, Write, Present, Persuade, In?uence, and Sell
Your Point of View to Others by Jeffrey Gitomer
• High Trust Selling by Todd Duncan
• The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople
by Stephen Schiffman
7. Familiarize yourself with presentation tools.
Getting a presentation or proposal in the right
format to present is sometimes as important as the
content itself. Knowing how to use PowerPoint,
Excel graphs, Visio
®
, or other ?owchart software
are keys to creating a professional-looking presen-
tation that can really enhance the impact of your
proposals. A couple of years ago we were putting
together a major presentation for the ?nance and
human resources departments and senior adminis-
tration in our organization to try to get support for
a signi?cant initiative we were undertaking. One of
my staff was a wizard at using Adobe Photoshop
®
,
and the resulting map slides that he created made
the point of what we were trying to accomplish so
clear that the impact of those slides on our overall
presentation cannot be overstated. Another upside
is that these programs are also fun to experiment
with. Most organizations offer basic and advanced
classes on these programs to help you get started,
Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology 117
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Alan Gresch
118 March/April 2009
CLINICAL ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
The Importance of Good Salesmanship
and all offer great tutorials if you prefer to learn on
your own. One caution: Be careful not to get too
caught up with using animation and sounds. They
tend to be distracting rather than add any real value
to the point you are trying to make. As always, the
“KISS” (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle applies.
Two good references in this area are How to Prepare,
Stage, and Deliver Winning Presentations by Thomas
Leech and Effective Presentation: How to Create
and Deliver a Winning Presentation by Ros Jay and
Antony Jay.
8. Be persistent. Sometimes an idea falls on deaf
ears because the timing isn’t right. Sometimes it is
because the idea wasn’t directed at the right set of
ears. Sometimes it is because there was something
lacking in the presentation. Do not give up. Figure
out why it didn’t sell, and go back at it again. Calvin
Coolidge supposedly said, “Nothing in the world
can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men
with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is
almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is
full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determi-
nation alone are omnipotent.”
9. Deliver what you sell. If you ever hope to make
a second sale or get support for another opportu-
nity within your organization, this is every bit as
important as the sale. You’ve all likely dealt with a
salesperson who vanishes after the sale or dealt with
a product that failed to deliver what you thought
you were promised. Did you give that guy another
opportunity? How does that saying go? “Fool
me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on
me.” It all starts with not overselling. Do not make
promises you aren’t 100% sure you can keep. Be
relatively conservative in your projections, and do
not—under any circumstances—fail to deliver on
your commitments. Your long-term success de-
pends on it. Don’t make excuses; just do whatever
it takes to live up to your commitments. Every time
you do, it builds credibility, and it makes the next
sale easier. Over time, your promises will be like
money in the bank to the leaders in your organi-
zation, and that is exactly where you want to be.
This idea might cause some to not take a chance at
all. Don’t be one of those people. The rewards are
worth the risk.
10. Follow up. The really good salespeople always fol-
low up with a card or an e-mail message, thanking
the person or people they met with for the oppor-
tunity and outlining in writing what was agreed on
with speci?c time lines. This works well for both
sides in that you clarify what you committed to
deliver by when, as well as what you need from the
other party in order to meet your commitments.
Adopt these practices, and very quickly you and your
team will ?nd yourselves more valued in your organiza-
tion. As a result, you’ll be more engaged, motivated, and
will be establishing goals based on what is most impor-
tant to making your organization successful, thus further
ensuring your own success. Now go out and sell! n
Alan Gresch is the corporate manager
of clinical engineering at Aurora Health
Care, a 13-hospital system in eastern
Wisconsin, and has over 30 years of
experience in clinical engineering.
Certification in Clinical Engineering
(CCE) Exam
Visit www.acce-htf.org/certi?cation/ for
handbook, application and more information.
Email [email protected] if you have any questions.
Exam Date November 7, 2009
US Application Deadline August 14, 2009
For those taking the exam within the US & Canada
International Application
Deadline July 17, 2009
For those taking the exam outside the US & Canada
doc_600178879.pdf