Success is not something that’s built overnight without any hard work or fighting spirit. Listen to your host Samuel Adeyinka as he sits down for a conversation with Jacob McLaughlin about the medical sales industry today. He shares the value of the programs and his role in helping people live their best lives. He shares his journey in seeking opportunities and being known and the importance of taking responsibility with what’s happening in your life.

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Device Rep To West Sales Manager – The 2 Year Sprint With Jacob Mclaughlin Part 1

Welcome to the show. We have with us a very enterprising guest. He goes by the name of Jacob McLaughlin. You might have heard of him. He has a podcast of his own. He is someone to watch because he came from the personal training space, and got into medical device sales in a leading technology company. Within a short time, he created a podcast to provide extreme value and has leveraged it into an even bigger position in the medical sales space. He’s having himself one heck of a career. He’s making the right connections, getting the right people, and doing a lot of the right things. We’ll get into it.

We have a nice thorough interview where we talk about his background, what he has experienced and what he has seen, and the opportunities people have that want to get into the space and that already operate within this space. I’m not going to spoil it. I’m going to save it all for the episode. This is going to be a two-part interview. This specific episode is part one. As always, thank you for tuning in to the show. I hope you enjoy this interview.

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Jacob, how are you doing?

I’m good. How are you doing?

I am fantastic. I am honored to showcase Jacob McLaughlin. He is a podcaster, medical sales expert, business owner, entrepreneur and enterpriser. This guy is making things happen, but I’m not going to spoil it. Jacob, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you do?

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Jacob McLaughlin. My story is I used to be a personal trainer. I worked for a guy and also had my own business. COVID happened and I decided, “I want to get into medical device sales.” Through that journey, I reached out to over 3,000 people and ended up getting four job offers from top companies. I landed a role with Medtronic.

I’m in the GYN space with Medtronic. I’ve done that in the last couple of years. I took the lowest performing territory in the nation. I was able to finish number eight in 2021. I finished in the top ten and had success. I’m very blessed with that opportunity. I’m excited to announce that I am finishing up here and I accepted a role for a startup where I and three other teammates will be growing this from the ground up. We’re not in the US yet, and we’re going to build it from the ground up. I’ll be running the whole Western United States and we’ll be getting our air miles on that.

We’ll talk more about it. Give everyone a little bit about how you created this opportunity from Medtronic to this new position, which has more responsibility. This is a huge move for you. What helped you create this opportunity?

For me, it’s being able to track my journey. If you don’t know me, I have a YouTube and a podcast. I’m also very active on LinkedIn. Because of that, people have been able to find me. People have been able to see my success. People have been able to get to know me. From that, it turned into an opportunity where I get a lot of recruiters who reach out. One of them reached out to me. He’s a great recruiter. I’m so thankful for him. He provided me with this opportunity on LinkedIn. We connected and had a great conversation. We clicked right away. We knew some mutual people. From there, it turned into getting flown out, doing some interviews, and being in this position.

[bctt tweet=”Be willing to work hard, but also balance it with your personal life.” via=”no”]

Let’s take it back to your personal training days. Take us before you even knew about medical sales. You were at college. You were working. I’m sure you had life ambitions. Talk to us a little bit about where your mind was before you even knew about medical sales, and then what introduced you to medical sales.

I moved out here at 23 years old. I had $1,200 to my name. My story is I lived off $30 to $50 a week. There were a lot of times I had to put groceries back. I was like, “I just want to make it,” so I came out here. I didn’t have a job. When I moved out here, I stopped at gyms with my resume and said, “I moved here from Iowa. I’m looking to train.” I was fortunate that I got connected.

I reached out to a guy named Jeremy Scott who is very big in the fitness world. He’s a fitness influencer. He has had a lot of success and has been doing it forever. I reached out to him. It was perfect timing because a person was leaving as I was coming in. He gave me a shot to work part-time, and I did. I always tell people that he let me come and see him, and then he was like, “Be at my gym at 4:30 PM on Monday.” I was there and he was like, “You can stick around a little longer.” That man changed my life. He is one of the biggest guys in my life because he broke so many glass ceilings that I had.

When you talk about ambition, he was the person who proved to me that you can make a great living doing whatever you want in life. He was doing it in fitness. I was thinking about going to OT school at the time. I got accepted into these big programs where they only accept 40 people, but I didn’t want to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. I paid for it all in my own way. He showed me that. My goal was to be like him. He changed my life. I saw the life he lived of being a personal trainer, owning a business, traveling, working out, being fit, and making money. I was like, “That sounds great.”

That’s what I was doing. I was working for him, and then I was also doing personal training on the side. He allowed me to have clients there as well. I would train clients when I wasn’t with him. My goal was eventually to own my own gym and go that route, but then COVID happened. If you guys don’t know anything about COVID here in Arizona, the strip clubs and casinos stayed open, but the gyms were closed. At the time, we couldn’t be around anybody. It started making me question, “What is this going to look like in my career?”

I had one person that has been like an aunt to me. I’m very blessed. She had been in med device sales at one point. She’s a leader of a large pharmaceutical company. She was like, “You should look at this.” I’m in Scottsdale, and if you guys don’t know, Scottsdale is known for having a lot of business owners and a lot of millionaires. I was fortunate at a young age to be surrounded by these high performers.

I had one guy that has been like an uncle and a brother to me. He sat me down one day and was like, “I see you working 100 hours a week. I know the drive and the passion you got.” We talked about me owning a business one day and doing stuff. He was like, “With that, you need to know how to market. You need to know how to sell. You could go into something else.” We had a talk and that’s when I started saying, “Someone told me about med device sales. What do you think?” He’s like, “You should look into it. Everybody knows the financial outcome and the skills you can learn from it.”

From there, I started googling. That was my journey. I started seeing what I could find and then reached out on LinkedIn to some people. To me, it has always made sense. If I’m going to go do a job, I should probably talk to those people and figure out the pros and the cons of the job and what it’s like. To some people, I figured out that’s not common and they just wing it.

That would be my advice to anybody. If you are interested in a job, you should probably talk to somebody and figure out the pros and cons, what you can make, what sucks, all the good stuff, and all that life. After talking about 12 to 15 people, I was like, “This is it. I can do this. I enjoy it.” I knew the power of social media. I picked up my phone. I turned it sideways and said, “My name is Jacob, I’m a personal trainer and I want to break into medical device sales.”

This is documented. Tell everybody what book they can find this in.

I have two books. My YouTube channel is where you’ll find everything. It will be the playlist of me doing it. I also wrote a book Guide For Breaking Into Medical Device Sales. I documented everything I did to get four job offers. I was able to turn the territory around the first year in. It’s going over everything I wish I would have known and how I turned over a territory that was the lowest performing.

I love that story. What ultimately had you land on Medtronic?

There are several reasons. Number one, it’s the number one company in the world. It’s the largest. For me, it was like, “If I’m going to do anything, I’m going to be with the best.” That’s my mindset. For me to get that opportunity to be with the largest company in the world, I know there were going to be a lot of perks with the largest company. You get a car. You get to have the best sales training. You get the best opportunity, and that did happen. That was number one.

Number two, they cared about their people. There’s no surprise when you talk to people that there are different companies in medical device sales. Some people don’t care about you. They just want you to hit the bottom dollar and they’ll cut you any chance they get. There are other ones where they care about human beings. Normally, you’ll see those people at the top because they’re focusing on culture. That was number two.

[bctt tweet=”Work harder than other people and win every day.” via=”no”]

Number three is I talked with a lot of people about work-life balance. I was willing to work hard. I already knew I was going to work hard. I was already working 100 hours as a personal trainer. I also knew that everybody I talked to in the division I was in loved it. Everybody was happy, but I can’t say that for all the divisions I talked to. There were some people who were like, “I don’t want to be like him or her.” They hate their life. It was that.

Number four, and this was a big deciding factor as you guys can imagine, is I got the opportunity to be a full-line sales rep right away. I’ve been told millions of times that nobody goes from having no sales experience to running territory as a full-line sales rep in the largest company in the world. That doesn’t happen. I was like, “That sounds like an awesome journey.” With that said, when that happens, instead of getting those other job offers that would be associate positions, I got to be like, “I’m getting a full-line sales rep right away. I’m going to get paid more. The opportunity is more. Also, I get all the responsibility.” That has been my life. Sink or swim. I was like, “I’m going to figure out in six months if I like this or I don’t like this.” That was my mindset. That’s why I went with Medtronic.

The reason I wanted to touch on that is I get a lot of people who reach out to me and they’re like, “You broke in as a full-line sales rep in a top company. I don’t think I could ever do that.” I’m like, “I don’t know if you should look at this industry then. If that’s your mindset and you’re scared and you don’t think you can figure it out, please don’t put yourself in this industry. You’re going to come in and be an associate. On the second day, the rep is going to be like, “Go to this facility and find this.” You’re going to be like, “What facility?” They would be like, “Walk out.”

You were intentional about getting into Medtronic, and then it happened. You were having this great career. Talk us through what it was like to go from that personal training lifestyle to medical sales. Remind everybody what specific field you’re in.

I’m in the GYN division. In Medtronic TruClear, we take out polyps, fibroids, and all that good stuff. That’s what we do. I’ll be straight up. I already knew I was going to crush it. I talked to people in this field and I’m like, “I’m working way more than you.” I’m making way less money and I’m already working 100 hours a week. All I got to do is be who I am and work. That’s the thing I tell everybody. I’m going to win every single day because I work harder than people. I’m not above anything. I’ve been taught my whole life that if I got to sweep the floors, I’m going to sweep the floors. If I’m going to run the business, I’m going to run the business. I’m going to lead by that example.

I’m not too good to say I don’t need to do something. That’s when I had those conversations. The thing I want you guys to know is that every morning, I was up at 4:00 AM. Every morning at 4:30 AM, I would workout. I would be done with my workout at 6:00 AM and then I would start training. I would be done by 6:30 AM or 7:00 AM with the training that I did by myself. Nobody was helping me. I would go run cases from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM. I would come back home, eat dinner, and then I go back to do my own trading for another couple of hours. At about 9:00 PM, I would go to bed. I repeated that for about six months to a year.

You can see the results it creates.

That’s what I tell people. I had some things go my way, but at the end of the day, the mindset is nobody works harder than I do. Nobody’s going to put in the effort. I say this on my podcast and to people in my course all the time. I’m like, “If I get to put up against the number one person, I’m going to beat them.” That’s my mindset. Let’s be real. Let’s say I get spanked by them. I’ll walk off the court pissed and mad, but instead of feeling that bad, I’m going back to the lab saying, “How did they beat me? What do I need to improve?” The next time they see me, it’s not going to be a spanking. I’m going to spank them because I’ve been working on it. That’s why I joke around with people. That’s my mindset.

That’s the winner’s spirit. You mentioned something. You have a course and you’re helping professionals. Let’s talk about that for a second. You were someone that got into the industry without a course. I’m someone that got into the medical sales industry without a course and we learned. There are so many things we saw that we’re like, “It didn’t have to be this way.” There are so many corners you can catch this. More importantly, we got to see that you want to get to the core of what drives a person to even help them see that this might not be a good fit for them or there might be an even better fit for them. Talk to us a little bit about the value of programs like the ones that we have, and their role in getting into the industry.

The biggest thing I want to say is I got told a million times and you got told a million times, “You got to go get B2B sales experience. You got to go do all this. You’re never going to break in without it.” Every single time, I would be respectful and say, “Thank you,” and hang up the phone. I would be like, “You don’t know who I am.”

I say this because I was a personal trainer. I was a person who trained somebody, got them results, had them do the workouts and all the work, and then still kept coming back to pay my bills, and yet going and selling a copier is going to make me a better salesperson? That’s where it never clicked for me. I was like, “I’m not going to listen to what these people are telling me.” That’s an ego part of me but I’m like, “I can do this. You’re telling me this just because I get bull crap. I can go figure this out.”

The reason we talk about the course is we’ve been able to help hundreds of people into this and do the exact same thing that we’ve done. The thing is that we’ve documented it. I know what they’re going to ask you. I already know the objections they’re going to say. I’ve lived this. When you buy a course or you get with people who have done it, it’s doing several things, but the number one thing is it’s saving you time.

It’s cutting that whole learning curve to a fraction of the time.

I say this to people all the time, “You might figure it out, but it might take you six months and six failed interviews to finally let it click why you’re not getting past the next round.”

[bctt tweet=”Lead by example. You’re never too good to not do anything.” via=”no”]

It can be longer. There are people that have been trying to get a position like this for two years.

I had a guy who tried to break in for two and a half years. He was in vet sales. He tried to break in for two and a half years. In two months, he got in after taking the course. I tell people, “After being able to get hundreds of people in this industry and also myself, I know the questions they’re going to ask. I know what the objections are.”

It’s a medical device sales interview. They’re going to have objections. Even if you give the right answer, they’re going to tell you what’s wrong. They want to figure out why you’re doing it. They want to see how you’re going to react. That’s the biggest thing. It’s being able to have that help. I say this all the time. It’s what you and I do every single day. I got on a call for 40 minutes with one of my students. We had to have a hard talk. I was like, “I know you’re checking these boxes. I’ve got feedback from my inner circle that you’re talking to. They said you didn’t do A, B and C. They said it was this. That’s why you’re not getting jobs right now.”

You can’t be taken seriously showing up like that.

That’s the biggest thing with these courses. I tell people too. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on courses because I believe in them and this is why. It has done it for me. I did that course and I returned my investment within the first month with no problem. Forever, I made way more and it’s a return on investment forever. The reason I’m saying that is because I know I could have figured it out eventually. It would have been hundreds of hours more of work. There would have been a lot more frustrations. I would have probably ended up spending just as much, if not more money, trying to figure other things out instead of having an expert who knows how it is and be like, “This is tried and true. We know what it is.”

We get this all the time. The number one thing I get is, “I want to make a lot of money.” I’m like, “Go do real estate. Go sell windows. Go sell solar panels that make $400,000 a year as some people do.” What’s your real why? Why do you want to be in it? Why do you want to have an impact on people? We’ve talked about this. There are different people in different parts of life. The 23-year-old who’s single, has nothing, and doesn’t even know up from down in the world is going to have a different focus on the person who I talked to who has four kids and is 34.

There are different availabilities that they can do. There are different sacrifices that they’re willing to do. You talked about being able to be like, “I know you want this but maybe this is a better option.” Lastly, if you guys haven’t figured it out, I’m a pretty real person. I don’t sugarcoat things. I’ve learned in my life that if people sugarcoat things because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, then those people’s feelings get hurt ten times over because they didn’t have a real conversation to have them reflect on stuff. That’s who I am.

For my course, I don’t know anybody in there because I’m making sure they’re a good fit for me. I can tell usually, “You’re going to be in it. We’re going to get you hired fast.” I can also tell, “You aren’t serious at all,” or “You just want to pay some money and a guaranteed job.” We were talking about this. I’m going to make an episode about this and a LinkedIn post about this. Do you want to know the only thing guaranteed in life? Nothing is guaranteed.

Death is guaranteed.

That is true. That’s the only thing. That’s a good point. There’s one thing in life that’s guaranteed and it’s death. That’s it. You can also argue for change. Change is going to happen.

Nothing is going to last forever.

That’s why I get passionate. I had a girl. You can imagine how the conversation went after she said this to me. She was like, “I wanted to connect with you because I wanted a guarantee in this industry.” I was straight up and we had a very adult conversation. I said, “That is the laziest comment I’ve ever gotten in two years. Don’t ever say that to anybody ever again. You need to change your life today. Otherwise, you’re going to have a sad life.” I’ve lived it. That’s where I say, “I moved out here with no money. I had nobody but myself. I had to figure it out.” We can all play the victims. We can all play some sob story or we can accept it. We can be like, “Maybe I’m not doing the best. Maybe I suck on a couple of parts, but I’m going to be coachable. I’m going to take people who are where I want to be. I’m going to put in the work. I’m going to change my whole life.”

Not only that but one thing that I love that you’re bringing out and the theme you keep repeating is that the core of what drives someone is going to determine everything. If someone is coming to you with a core that hasn’t been thought through and it’s based on all the wrong reasons for an industry like this, you telling them that they need to get their lives together and come back when they’re ready is probably the best service you can give them. They’re going to go home and evaluate why they’re going to do this.

If they find a way to slip in, they’re going to hate their job. They are going to be that sales rep that did it for five months and quit the company. The company is going back to you saying, “How did they even find out about getting this opportunity? Why were they even here?” It’s critical to be upfront with people that want to get in. I love what you’re doing.

[bctt tweet=”The only person responsible for the way your life is right now is you. If your life sucks, it’s because of you. If your life is great, it’s because of you.” via=”no”]

That girl that I had a conversation with, this is where I told her, “We’re not talking about medical device sales. We’re not talking about the course. We’re talking about your life.” Two things are going to happen. She’s either going to tell people, “I’m the biggest jerk. I suck. I’m not a good person.” She’s going to have a loser life of playing the victim for the rest of her life. She will be asking for guaranteed jobs when there is nothing. She’s not going to put in any work and be lazy, or she’s going to reflect on our conversation. She going to be like, “I was being lazy. I wasn’t putting in the work. Maybe I should look at some things that I’m personally doing to see if I want to go and be in a place where I talk to a person who I want to be.”

It’s either two things. That person is going to say, “I suck.” They will keep living this mediocre life, feeling bad for themselves, and having the victim story to play for the rest of their life or they’re going to reflect. They’re going to make some changes and they’re going to go after the life that they want and they could have. That’s all I’m about. I’m not going to sit here and do it for you. You got to want it for yourself. I say this to my family. I love my family but I’m like, “I can’t do it for you.” It’s the saying I say all the time, “You can lead a horse to water but can’t make them drink it.”

It’s the truth. It’s reality.

That’s the thing I make sure I get across to people. I say this a lot but I want this to be on the episode. The only person responsible for the way your life is great or bad is you. If your life sucks, it’s because of you. If your life is great, it’s because of you. You might be like, “I had this. I had that.” You did but you were the one who is making the decision to stay in that. You’re the person who decides how you react to it.

You can either play the victim or you can go, “That sucks but I’m going to go figure something new out. I’m going to make it a lot better.” I always want to say that because that’s my passion in life. Medical device sales are awesome. I love this but I want the best for people. As a kid who had no money, I’ve now been able to take every trip that I wanted. I can quit my job now and go take whatever trip I want. I changed my own life and my family’s life. That’s what I want for everybody.

Here’s something I want to discuss. We’re talking about getting into the industry. One thing that we all know very well is in order to pour into other people’s lives, you have to be pouring into your life. Talk to us a little bit about the things that you do outside of work and medical sales that feed you, nourish your spirit, and put you in a better position to continue to give to your own following and people that have a passion for medical sales.

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He has words of wisdom that anyone can learn from. What I liked about having him as a guest is with his short time in the industry, he has found a way to ascend his career, capitalize on opportunities that he didn’t even know existed, and truly grow himself and anyone that comes into contact with him. His freedom of mind has allowed him to do that. He doesn’t put any limitations on what he believes can be accomplished. That is an essential mindset for anyone to have, let alone a medical sales rep.

You’re maybe reading this episode and you’re thinking to yourself that you might’ve even heard one of his episodes or you want to have a career like this, or you might be in an industry now, whether it be personal training or something customer service related or something that has no sales background and no medical background and you’re thinking to yourself, “I want to get into medical sales. I want to experience a career like what I’m hearing from Jacob.” I want you to go to EvolveYourSuccess.com. Select Attain a Medical Sales Role. Give a little bit of information and have a conversation with one of us here at Evolve Your Success. Let’s get you into the position that you dream of.

The medical sales industry is vast from pharmaceutical to medical device to dental to diagnostic. The list goes on. You can be in this field. There is a fit for you. If this is something you want, there’s a fit for you. It’s just a matter of finding the right one and then doing the right things to make that dream happen. It’s showcasing your authenticity, which is something that we talked about in this interview.

If you’re someone that’s looking to get into the industry, visit EvolveYourSuccess.com and select Attain a Medical Sales Role. Give us some information and let’s have a conversation. If you’re someone that’s in the field and you’re tuning into this in your car or maybe in your off time at the gym or your home workout center, or maybe you’re taking a stroll or walking the dog, you know that you can have a better year. You can end the year strong. You know that there are things you could be doing that you’re not doing. If you were to be doing them, your life would change.

You might not understand exactly what they are, but you know that if you leveled up in certain areas within how you manage your territory, you’re going to have a completely different career experience. You’ve played with the idea of, “Where can I go to get that resource and get that help? Where can I go to learn how to make these things that I can envision happen? What can I do about that?” Stop wondering, thinking, and guessing where you can go and visit EvolveYourSuccess.com. Select Improve Sales Performance. Click on the medical sales training and give us some information.

Let’s have a conversation. Let’s get you to the career that you know you are supposed to have. Let’s get you the results that you know you are supposed to have. Let’s get you the progress that you know you’re supposed to have. As always, we do our best to bring you guests that bring insight, innovation, and different ways of making things happen. Keep tuning in to the show. Make sure you tune in for part two with Jacob McLaughlin.

Important Links

• Jacob McLaughlin – LinkedIn
• YouTube – Jacob McLaughlin
• Podcast – New to Medical Device Sales
• Attain a Medical Sales Role
• Improve Sales Performance

About Jacob McLaughlin

Self-motivated individual who is driven by results. As a former collegiate athlete, I know the importance of leadership, teamwork, and the building of relationships to help obtain success. I’ve been brought up to know the value of a strong work ethic and make sure to display this in every aspect of my life.

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