BackKey Takeaways
- Sales maps give reps step-by-step guidance
- Sales maps enable reliable sales forecasting
It isn’t easy being a medtech sales rep. Each day, they face an increasingly complex set of challenges to building relationships with customers and closing sales:
- More competitors and competitive messaging
- Longer sales processes
- Less face-to-face time with customer
- Multi-disciplinary selection committees
- Vendor standardization
- Sales training that focuses on products instead of customers
- Inaccurate forecasting
- High turnover among both reps and customers
In this environment, winging it won’t work. Reps need a strategy that addresses all these challenges in the form of a step-by-step plan. Reps need a sales map.
What’s a sales map?
A sales map is a visual, easily referenced guide to the sequential steps of the sales cycle for each target customer in a product launch. It provides direction on selecting target, questions to ask, messages to deliver, objection handlers, and sales collateral to use at each point on the map. A good map can shorten the sales process and create more consistent success rates across sales reps.
Most important, by removing any uncertainty of who to see, when, and what to say, sales maps help every rep engage with customers with confidence. And a confident rep can better think on their feet, customizing the actions and messages in the map with what their customer encounters need in the moment.
Sales maps are not intended to be strictly followed but help reps own the process. After all, no two salespeople execute the same way, and their success rates can vary wildly. Sales maps address this by standardizing sales execution on best practices.
What’s in a sales map?
A sales map needs gives reps answers to each of the following questions:
- Who are the stakeholders?
- In what order do you see them?
- What questions will uncover their challenges?
- Which collateral will address those challenges?
- How should objections be handled?
- How and when to proceed to the next step in the sales process?
Putting a sales map into practice
Sales maps can be used in different ways, from product launches to sales training to sales management. Here’s how:
Product launches
- A live virtual meeting with your sales force to present the map as their blueprint for a product launch. At this event, marketing presents:
- A launch video
- A sales training deck that details the research-based rationale for the product
- The sales map
Sales training
Replace product-first focus in sales training with a customer-solution-focused process outlined in your sales map by training reps to think first about their targets’ needs across every stage, and to adopt the best practices of top reps. Maps also support role-play training exercises with reps at each stage and with different targeted customers.
Sales management
Sales maps also aid in monitoring each rep’s progress across the stages articulated in the map throughout the sales cycle. And knowing where each rep is in the process at any given point enables more accurate forecasting.
To get started on sales mapping, download the sales map template here:
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