Amazing episode to celebrate the National Nurses Week!
Unlock the secrets to a thrilling career leap from the frontlines of nursing to the cutting edge of medical sales with our guest, Aaron Kravitz, who brings firsthand insights on making this bold transition. This episode is a treasure trove of advice for nurses seeking to leverage their clinical expertise beyond bedside care, as Aaron outlines how he parlayed his background into a successful role as an Account Executive with 3M. His story illustrates the power of understanding patient needs and product intricacies, proving invaluable for those aiming to consult and influence healthcare decisions on a larger scale.
Navigate the intricate world of medical sales through Aaron’s journey from direct patient care to strategic account management. Discover the wide array of opportunities that await those ready to step out of the hospital ward and into a role that balances the rush of sales with the satisfaction of impacting patient outcomes. Aaron’s candid sharing of his experience offers a blueprint for healthcare professionals to harness their clinical knowledge, demonstrating its importance in advising on product choices that resonate across the healthcare spectrum.
Prepare to be inspired by the possibilities that beckon to nurses in the terrain of medical sales, where the pursuit of improved patient care meets the thrill of business success. Whether you’re enticed by the dynamic nature of OR-based roles or the consultative approach of longer sales cycles, this conversation with Aaron provides a glimpse into a world where clinical skills and sales acumen intersect. So, tune in and set your sights on a profession where your influence extends from individual patient interactions to shaping the broader healthcare landscape.
About the guest:
Results-driven Clinical-Sales Professional with over 15 years of experience in driving new business development, building relationships, business analytics and strategic planning. Proactive and insightful, with a proven ability to prioritize, identify customer needs, and implement effective solutions to deliver consistent results.
Clinically working as a Registered Nurse in Intensive Care Units, Emergency Departments, Organ Procurement, and Cardiac Cath Labs for many years, has made the transition to Medical Sales through Healthcare Value Analysis.
Now a successful Medical Device Healthcare Account Executive.
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Episode Transcript
00:00 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast.
00:01
I’m your host, Samuel, founder of a revolutionary medical sales training and mentorship program called the Medical Sales Career Builder, and I’m also host of the Medical Sales Podcast. In this podcast, I interview top medical sales reps and leading medical sales executives across the entire world. It doesn’t matter what medical sales industry from medical device to pharmaceutical, to genetic testing and diagnostic lab you name it. You will learn how to either break into the industry, be a top 10% performer within your role or climb the corporate ladder. Welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast and remember, I am a medical sales expert, sharing my own opinion about this amazing industry and how it can change your life.
00:52
Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast. I’m your host, Samuel, and we have a very special guest with us today and his name is Aaron Kravitz. Now Aaron is actually a sales professional for 3M in their acute care division. But what’s so special about this episode today and special about Aaron is he actually was a nurse for a significant number of years that became a sales rep, medical sales professional in a non-OR based role and really into a space that a lot of nurses don’t know they can go. But I’m not going to spoil it. I’m going to save it for the episode. As always, we do our best to bring you guests that are doing things differently in the medical cell space, so I really do hope you enjoy this interview. Hey, Aaron, how are we doing?
01:35 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
today, hi, Samuel Doing great.
01:38 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Good to talk to you, absolutely.
01:51 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Why don’t you tell the audience who you are and what you do? So my name is Aaron Kravitz. I am an account executive for 3M Healthcare and I manage a portfolio of vascular access products, disposables for acute care, setting hospitals, as well as some wound care products and other things such as that. So it’s a great, great role that I have. I cover a pretty large territory During implementations things such as that I can call on clinical folks that we have employed by 3M to come and assist with education. So I work kind of as a consultant for 3M. I see my role very much so as that.
02:24 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I like it. I like it. So you know. You said a couple of things that are really interesting. So the specialty is acute care. Give us a little, just a definition. You know acute care specialty encompasses what.
02:37 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
So acute care specialty is the large hospitals that we see, so inpatient hospitals that’s who my customer base is. You know there are roles within this that work with the out-of-hospital long-term care, home health agencies and whatnot. My specific role is that of the account executive for the acute care market in South Texas.
02:58 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Got it, and so would you say that, for your position, you’re always talking to hospitals, or is it a mix of hospitals and clinics and other entities?
03:07 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
So always hospitals. So my call points in there I help out infection preventionists, vascular access specialists, CEOs, different individuals who make product decisions that affect the whole of the hospital, so every patient that comes in Got it, and is it a team-based cell?
03:32 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
or is this just you? You have your territory and you’re pretty much the lone man responsible for taking care of it all. How is it all set up?
03:40 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
I see it kind of a franchise almost. So yes, I am the lone man. I am it. I have a director that manages a large territory with a lot of different sales executives but South Texas is. Then I can call on other a clinical team to come in and help do that. But a lot of the education I do myself. I, you know I take a pretty hands-on approach with that, being a nurse, I talk their language.
04:20 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So let’s get into it then, because you know, I think, I think, when it comes to nurses getting into medical sales and I’m not going to say this is a fact, but I almost want to say that there’s a sentiment out there that nurses believe they need to be in OR-based roles, and I think that the reality is a nurse can provide an immense amount of value to any medical service they decide to take. And when it comes to your space. Acute care I’m not even sure nurses realize that’s an option.
04:51 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Yeah, I think you’re right yeah.
04:52 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, I want to get into, I want to explore that with you and to kick that off. Help me understand. So, with this position, what’s the day in the life let’s say for all the nurses that are listening to this right now and thinking, huh, this is interesting, walk us through a day in the life of being an acute care self-treatment.
05:14 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You know, I think of it almost as being a nurse and I’ll tell you there’s a lot of things that in with that. The reason that I bring that up is, you know, with nurses we help patients make decisions every day. So in my daily life I’m helping wound care nurses, vascular access nurses, supply chain. I’m helping them make decisions on what are the best products and how best to utilize them, and that’s something that my nursing training really has helped me in my sales role, in that I’m helping people every day make the best decisions with what they have. I can go in and do in-servicing education to staff members, to hospital education directors. I can meet daily with a CFO to talk about a business plan. What is their purchase? What does their purchases do? How is that affecting patient care? So a day in my life can be very variable, which is great. It’s not the same thing every day, just like nursing not the same thing every day. I’m all over the hospital.
06:24 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So, okay, okay, how about this? What time are you getting up every day?
06:27 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Oh, I get up early cause I’ve got a. I get up at like five or six. I hit the gym. Then I’m on the road. Okay, and you know it’s variable. A lot of customers don’t want to see first thing in the morning, you know, so I might be at a hospital. My first appointments usually are about 9 or 10 AM. That’s usually when my first appointments are.
06:50 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, and then? What are we doing? Are we at that hospital for a number of hours? Are we in and out? So a lot of times.
06:56 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
We’re in and out. A lot of times I’m checking on the products that I support and sell, making sure that they’re not having any issues. There’s not any questions. If there are questions, I might go visit those individuals that have that specific question. So you know, not a lot of time. It’s a couple hours in the hospital and then I might move on to another facility. I cover a very large geography so that same cadence can be at different hospitals throughout my territory.
07:25 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
On the average would you say you’re hitting five, six hospitals a day, one, two hospitals a day, ten hospitals a day.
07:31 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You know it could be two to three. Two to three hospitals a day is pretty average for me.
07:36 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And then for someone in this kind of role, are we coming home at five? Are we coming home at seven? Are we coming home whenever we want?
07:42 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Well, that’s one thing I found just a wonderful work-life balance with this. It enables me to go help with my son playing baseball. So there’s days where at three o’clock I’m done. There’s days that at five o’clock. If I have to travel, sometimes it might be a little bit later, but there’s some variability with that. But what’s great about it is the ability to schedule that Right Right. You know, we have goals. I have my sales goals, I have my what I set in the expectations I set with my customers and it’s up to me to be able to plan that out. So if the day ends at two or three, that’s when it ends. If it’s something I have to go back later and do some emails in the evening. If it’s something I have to go back later and do some emails in the evening, I’ll do it. But it’s really a great work-life balance.
08:29 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love it. I love it. Yeah, it’s great.
08:31
So let me ask you this I want to go to a sales moment and indulge us here. Give us your best. You’re a nurse, you were a nurse and that was what you did, and you were a nurse for a significant amount of time, so that’s what you knew. So how you chose to operate. And then you became a medical sales rep, and one thing I did. When I talk to nurses, I always say one cool thing about a nurse who wants to be in medical sales is you’re all about impact. Why would you have a job like this if you didn’t care about impact? And with medical sales, you can make a larger impact for the mere fact that you can help more people than who is coming to your hospital. Sure, with that being said, give us the moment when you realize that, wow, this is what I’m now doing is amazing. Now, as a nurse, you’ve seen a lot of stuff, man. I mean, you’ve probably seen it Sure, sure.
09:24 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You could wow us, you could you could wow anyone I know, right Anyone I know but you still get a wow moment when you make a transition.
09:31 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And I want to hear that wow moment for you when you realize that, wow, I’m a medical sales rep and I’m so glad I made a transition.
09:45 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, so I, I, I know exactly when that happened and it was very early on in the sales part of my career. There was a hospital system that was having a large amount of central line blood and stream infections. So I would work with them and working with them and finding a product that would help them and a process that would help them Right, and being able to implement that and then come back months later and see that their infection rate dropped because of the product that I helped them implement. That’s a 900 bed hospital. That’s huge. That’s huge. These are thousands of patients per year. That was the aha moment for me. I was like you know what?
10:23
No, this is this is really good, this is really good, and a lot of that. I look back at that moment and it’s very much. You know, I worked in a cardiac cath lab as a nurse. It was the same kind of feeling when somebody’s coming in in distress and they’re having a cardiac event and we fix them and they walk out. I mean that’s huge, that is just it’s it’s. Those are very, very similar, similar moments. You know their success. What you’re doing is helping people and I think, as nurses, that’s what we do. We help people, people. In this role as a sales executive, I still help people every single day, and more so maybe than I did. You know, as a nurse working one-on-one with patients, I’m working, you know, affecting a larger group of patients. It’s great, it’s just it’s great.
11:19 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That is amazing. Okay, let’s get into how you got here. So you were a nurse. Take us back, I want to. Okay, so as a nurse, we can assume that you were engaged with medical sales reps. You were engaged with people that were in the space that you are in today. But I want to go back to where you said. I want to be over there, I want to do either what they’re doing, or I want to do what I just saw, or I want to do that side of it.
11:49 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Yeah.
11:49 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Talk to us about that.
11:50 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, it’s great stuff. So nursing has been a great career for me. I worked in emergency rooms, intensive care units. Various clinical roles that enabled me to number one affect patient care tremendously, just from being the nurse at the bedside in those front lines. And then as my career progressed as a registered nurse, I was in positions to where it started to look like we were making purchasing decisions and clinical folk were starting to be brought into those discussions. It wasn’t just supply chain and the CEOs and CFOs and medical directors. A lot of nursing now is involved in what’s called shared governance, where they’re sharing those types of decisions with the bedside nurses to ensure we all get a say-so.
12:42
So during that, a role came up for, a position in value analysis, which was a clinical resource director role, and with this role I kind of worked with finance, supply chain, other clinicians to help pick these products, what are the best products for our patients. So, using my clinical knowledge, that’s kind of where this transition started for me. Using my clinical knowledge, being able to see OK, how much does this stuff really cost? You know why does it cost this much? What’s the evidence behind it. So being able to understand and being part of that process was really it was. It was great, it was a great, great pivot for me in a great position, but during that I was also able to meet all of these sales executives, all of these reps.
13:33 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And that’s when, and you know what I need to be on this side, yeah.
13:37 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You build these connections and you get more information about the products that are at your, your hospital, and then your passion as a nurse to help more people can come into play. And it did for me. And that’s when I said you know what? Not only can I affect one system, but I can affect a lot of healthcare systems. So with that I was able to make a clinical role for a healthcare company where I would clinically support their sales force, and then that turned into a sales role. I was good at it, it was great, it was fun, I had a great passion for it and it was recognized. So not only was I the clinical individual with the accounts, I also became the sales rep and that’s how my transition came from the bedside nurse to now an account executive.
14:33 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow.
14:34 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Wow.
14:35 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay. So with you being the nurse that you are in this space, I want you to share with our audience. You know, for those listening that are thinking about I want to do what he’s doing, I want to have his kind of career. I see what he’s saying and let’s speak specifically to a nurse wanting to get into a non-OR based position. Sure what?
15:09 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
are three things that you would say this person that’s listening right now should definitely have that are really considering making this time Drive is number one. You’ve got to have it and you’ve got, and what that will allow you to do is open up your eyes and you’ll be able to see certain things that are that are happening at your hospital that you can, that you can make changes to and you can affect. Number two is really to dive in next and make yourself available. Once you have that drive, make yourself available, let the management team know. Look, I want to help with this process. I know that this is happening and this is an ill effect because of, maybe, a product decision or a process decision, but I want to help that. I want to be a part of that solution. And what that does is it opens up and it makes you contact. You know you’ll get new contacts and you’ll find different roles in the hospital that you didn’t even know existed, that are involved with change.
16:08
And the third thing is really to be a part of organizations outside of your hospital. So, whether that’s a nursing, the nursing organization, the acute care nurses I’m a vascular access certified nurse myself, access certified nurse myself be a part of your association of vascular access be a part of. Every facility will have be a part of some sort of purchasing group and there is healthcare supply chain organizations. Be a part of as many of those as you can because you get your contacts and you start to see there is so much that I can do to really help number one the customer, our patients and the organization that I work for. So you’re able to really have just a great career bringing all of those parts together. But it starts with that drive to make that change.
17:05 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode and I want to let you know. Our programs cover the entire career of a medical sales professional, from getting into the medical sales industry to training on how to be a top performer in the medical sales industry, to masterfully navigating your career to executive level leadership. These programs are personalized and customized for your specific career and background and trained by over 50 experts, including surgeons.
17:32
Our results speak for ourselves and we’re landing positions for our candidates in less than 120 days in top medical technology companies like Stryker, medtronic, merck, abbott you name it. Would you run an Ironman race without training and a strategy? You wouldn’t, so why are you trying to do the same with the medical sales position? You need training, you need a strategy and you need to visit evolveyoursuccesscom. Fill out the application schedule some time with one of our account executives and let’s get you into the position that you’ve always dreamed of, okay.
18:16 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
And then on the flip side, and let’s not necessarily negative, but if you’re this kind of person, you probably wouldn’t appreciate this type of role. What would you share? Top three things. You see a lot of times with sales executives that go into the OR, for instance, a lot of times they’re very high adrenaline people. They’re in cases all day. They’re working with the physicians hand in hand. This might not be the role for that. You know this. This role that I have is much, so much, much more laid back. It’s a thinking role. It’s a long sales cycle that we have. It might not be for the adrenaline junkie, if I can put it that way. You know this is a very laid back role. This is something that you know requires a lot of confidence because you are going in as very much as a consultant.
19:11 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And it’s a consultant sales role. I really see myself as that. Sure, now I’m going to bring up, before we wrap up here. I’m going to bring up a sensitive subject and answer it the best I can. But nursing is. I find nursing rather challenging because the job of a nurse is often similar across nurses throughout the country, but hospitals are dramatically different and the pay range of a nurse is dramatically different.
19:40
So you have these people, or some of them, like a travel nurse in California living their best life, or some of them like a travel nurse in California live in their best life, and then you have some people like just a registered nurse in Wisconsin, in a metropolitan area within Wisconsin. It’s kind of a challenge. So I want to ask you know what range salary-wise can someone expect going from nursing to a non-OR based role?
20:09 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
that that that’s a little bit difficult to answer and that there are so many roles that are outside of the the clinical nursing that nurses can do for. Third, for vendor companies. Okay, um, it could be.
20:27 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Give you the clinician give me a range of the highest. It could most likely be or or and maybe don’t we, we don’t even need to share the lowest, so what is possible?
20:36 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
I guess that’s more of the question commission-based role and there are many companies that have uncapped salaries. So you sell, your product is used, you continue to use it, you have an uncapped salary. Does that look like $500,000 a year? Maybe Does it look like $3,000? Maybe Does it look like a million Sometimes, you know, depending on the space that you’re in and the products that you have. But it is a commission based sales role and most of them are and that really, to me it’s very exciting because it gives me the opportunity to plan my destiny.
21:24 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
But you still have a base pay component.
21:26 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
I do have a base pay, but you know, I think you know the way that I look at my base pay. If I’m only making my base pay, I’m not doing my patients nor my company justice.
21:37 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That was, that was well said, Aaron, that was well said, okay, okay.
21:41 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You know. So you, you get a base pay, but that’s again. I think.
21:45 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
If you’re doing it for the money, I don’t know you know, you, you got to do it for bigger, and for me it’s the patient and it’s the growth of my company. I love it. Last thing as a nurse, you made a conscious decision to be in this space. For all the nurses out there that are relatively young, you know, they’ve only been working less than five years and they’re realizing that they don’t want to be here as much as they thought they could and they’re considering options. What reason would you say that they should look into medical?
22:15 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
services Numerous, but the ones that stick out are, you know, for me are the work-life balance is tremendous. Earning potential is another one. Your ability to create your own path you can do that with medical sales there’s just. You can really just pave your own destiny with it and I think those reasons really drive you to this profession. And as nurses you’re going to be helping people more so than you thought possible, as when you first started and thought you know what I want to be a nurse. The impact that you can have on patients’ lives is tremendous, and I see it every day.
23:09 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Beautifully said, Aaron, beautifully said. On that note, Aaron, we’re going to bring this to a close. Sure, anything else you’d like to share with the audience?
23:32 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
No, I just well, you know, I tell you, Samuel, nurses that are not looking to stay in a clinical role and are interested in medical sales medical device, pharmaceutical whatever that is for them.
23:41 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Do it. Ah, come on, all right. All right, I love it. That was awesome. Last thing we’ll do then is the lightning round. You have less than 10 seconds to answer four questions, Aaron. Are you ready? Let’s do it. Let’s do it, all right. First question what is the best book you’ve read in the last six months? Oh goodness.
23:56 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Sales Truth. It’s a Mike Weinberg book, excuse me, and it brings it back. There’s a lot of different sales strategies and things and it really brings it back to the basics. And again, I’m not trained in sales in a manner that is from any schooling, so I do a lot of research on sales. It’s truly an art form and it is truly something that interests me. So, as a nurse, I read a lot of sales books.
24:27 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Hey, come on Sales truth. I’m going to check that out. All right, what’s the best TV show or movie you’ve seen in the last six months?
24:34 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
um Equalizer 3. I’m a big Denzel Washington fan, so um Denzel Washington’s it, he is to me. He is like the guy is just incredible.
24:45 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So any movie with him is great, so that’s awesome. I couldn’t agree with you more best meal you’ve had in the last six months. We want the restaurant and name of the meal was battalion, which is a.
25:01 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
You know there’s a lot of great Italian restaurants and San Antonio has a lot of great food and usually a lot of great Mexican food, but my wife and I ate at a restaurant called battalion, Mexican food. But my wife and I ate at a restaurant called Battalion, which is a Italian restaurant that is in an old firehouse, and I had the lobster ravioli and it was just, it was amazing, it was good stuff Next time I’m in South Texas.
25:25 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And then last question what is the best experience you’ve had in the last six months? What is the best experience you’ve had in the?
25:31 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
last six months Watching my son hit a home run in his little league baseball.
25:38 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
To me.
25:38 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
It just it lit up and it just showed. I mean there was other kids on base and I think you know the coach said it best when afterwards he was like you know, we the other kids came in and he was like you know, we uh win and we lose as a team, and today we won as a team and Jackson led that team and I think my and that was just that was the moment where it’s like man.
25:59
That’s great, how old, how old again he’s nine years old, I have a nine, and it was just that was the moment. That was amazing. That is sticking out how many?
26:08 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
is he only one or how many do you have?
26:09 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
no, no, I have three sons actually. Three sons, two of them in college and my youngest is nine.
26:16 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow, I have two 14 and nine Nine’s a special age.
26:23 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Yeah, that’s a great age. That’s a great age.
26:25 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That is fantastic. Well, congratulations to him.
26:28 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
Thank you, thank you.
26:29 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That is absolutely wonderful. Real quick did your son’s other two go into medical school.
26:35 – Aaron Kravitz (Guest)
They’re in college right now. Okay, and they are seriously looking at that. Wow, so they’re both in college right now. They’ve seen the wonderful life that I’ve been able to provide for them, the happiness I mean it’s just again. Samuel, I don’t think I could ask for a better position in life right now and for your sons to be able to see that is pretty special.
27:01 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Amen to that, Aaron. That’s beautiful, Aaron. It was a pleasure having you on the show, fantastic learning about acute care space, and thank you for coming on the show today. Great, Samuel, thank you for all you do Absolutely. And that was Aaron Kravitz Fantastic stuff.
27:19
You know what I love about this episode is he really he really loves what he does and he really took the time to understand how he can make a bigger impact leaving nursing, and he’s created such a career for himself that all he wants to do now is give back and show other people the opportunity they have if they’re a nurse that no longer wants to be doing bedside care. And, of course, it’s 100% aligned with what we do here at Evarva Success and why we bring you these messages so you can see what the opportunities are for you. So if you’re a nurse out there and you listen to this episode, then you should know what I’m going to say, but I’m going to say it anyway. I want you to go to evolveyoursuccesscom, go to the page, select the application, fill out the application and send it in, and schedule some time with one of our account executives, interview with us to see if our program is a good fit for you and we can get you into the medical sales position.
28:20
Just like Aaron, as always, we do our best to bring you guests that are doing things differently in the medical sales space, so make sure you tune in next week for another episode of the Medical Sales Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode and remember I have a customized and personalized program that gets you into the medical technology industry as a sales professional or any type of role for that matter. Become a top performer in your position and masterfully navigate your career to executive level leadership. Check out these programs and learn more at EvolvesAssesscom by visiting our site, filling out an application schedule some time with one of our account executives and allowing us to get you where you need to be. Stay tuned for more awesome content with amazing interviews on the Medical Sales Podcast.