Unlock the secrets to a successful career in medical sales with insights from Chris Reese, the US Vice President of Sales for Medtronic’s ENT division.
From his early days at Boston Scientific to his current executive role, Chris shares his journey, including the strategic planning and mentorship that catapulted his career. Learn how to navigate the complexities of leadership, balance priorities, and the importance of adaptability in the ever-evolving medical sales landscape.
Step into the multifaceted world of a US Vice President of Sales and discover the breadth of responsibilities beyond just revenue generation. Chris provides a candid account of the emotional weight of leadership, emphasizing the well-being of team members and the far-reaching impact of his decisions. Gain a realistic view of the challenges and rewards that come with steering a large division, including collaboration with various departments and international partners.
Explore the essential qualities needed for success in medical sales, from resilience and a passion for patient outcomes to the ability to adapt in a constantly changing field. Chris debunks the myth that advancements in technology will replace human skills, highlighting the irreplaceable value of medical sales professionals.
Hear about the promising future of ENT technology, the importance of mentorship, and Chris’s personal experiences that shaped his career. This episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiring stories for anyone in or aspiring to join the medical sales industry.
Meet the guest:
Chris Reese is the US Vice President of Sales for the ENT Group at Medtronic, with extensive experience in the medical sales field. Starting his career as a sales director, Chris has risen through the ranks thanks to his strong work ethic, leadership skills, and a passion for patient care. He is known for his strategic vision, ability to lead diverse teams, and commitment to personal and professional growth. Chris emphasizes the importance of staying connected with both customers and industry advancements, particularly in the rapidly evolving ENT sector. His insights and leadership continue to drive innovation and success within Medtronic’s ENT Group
Connect with him: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-j-reese/
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Episode Transcript
00:00 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast. 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 could change your life. Hello and welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast. I’m your host, Samuel, and today we have with us a very special guest, and he goes by the name of Chris Reese. Chris Reese is the US Vice President of Sales for Medtronic in the ENT division, and I am not going to tell you anymore.
01:09
This is an episode you absolutely have to listen to. If you’re someone that wants to get in, you got to listen. If you’re someone that’s already in medical sales, you got to listen. And for someone that’s looking to get into leadership, whether you’re trying to get into first-line leadership or second or third or senior leadership, guess what? You’ve got to listen to this episode. So, as always, we do our best to bring you guests who are doing things differently in the medical sales space, and I really do hope you enjoy this interview. Hey, Chris, how are we doing today? Hey, how’s it going? Great to see you. Great to see you as well. Why don’t you tell the audience who you are and what you do?
01:43 – Chris Reese (Guest)
I appreciate that. So I am Chris Reese, US Vice President of Sales over at Medtronic for the ENT Group.
01:49 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
For the ENT Group. So this is a big deal, everyone, and I’ll tell you why. Last time I talked to Chris, he was Director of Sales Strategy at Boston Scientific. Fast forward, gosh, not even barely a year later, not even a year later. And here I am talking to the US Vice President of Sales, ent at Medtronic. Everyone, now that people have heard this Chris, everyone’s probably thinking how did he make that happen? Talk to us. Talk to us.
02:21 – Chris Reese (Guest)
I planned it out strategically and I made a wish right. It’s a lot of luck and timing being surrounded by the right people. So when you and I got connected last year, I was working for a phenomenal mentor of mine, sam Conway, which a lot of people have recognized and who know in this industry, had an opportunity to learn from him and his leadership team and his leadership team. He offered me an amazing opportunity to come out of the field where I’ve traditionally done sales leadership and to see what’s going on behind the scenes and to see how it really functions which I don’t think a lot of sales managers and leaders get an opportunity to see and really gave me full access. And at that time we were bringing together a lot of different divisions under cardiology, a lot of different change management work, a lot of different operational things that we were working on. You provided me other mentors within Boston Scientific and so you saw the way that group was operating.
03:11
I’m never going to say enough great things about the opportunities that they gave me and when I got connected to who is now my boss here in ENT, amy Van Sack, who’s the OU president, she started laying out kind of what some of her needs were in an individual to come in.
03:26
They had an opening for a US vice president of sales job.
03:30
It just so happened that the same things that I had been working on for years over there, that we had started to really perfect, were some of the similar needs that they had over here.
03:39
And so you know a lot of what you and I talk about is the grind and the hustle and the persistence, and I know when you and I connected, I talked a lot about you know, my desire to be in this exact role right around the same level that a lot of mentors I’ve had are in and to give an opportunity to do that. And so the timing just worked out perfect the needs of the organization, my background and skills, which were very unique and odd kind of. At that time I was starting to get a little bit nervous that maybe I was getting off the beaten path and not really doing these things, but it really proves the point right Just go to work, really try hard, be a great person, and people will look out for you and the right opportunities will open up. And I’m about as surprised as you are that this opportunity came so fast and it’s been a real blessing.
04:20 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
It’s a blessing. So let’s talk about it. Going from sales director to director of sales strategy and then to US vice president, that’s literally different perspectives from the leadership view. Talk to us about how your thoughts on how you’re going to lead changed From sales director to director of sales strategy. What was the difference and what did you realize you needed to do? And then now, as US vice president, what’s the difference and what have you realized you needed to kind of step up into and be able to do?
04:54 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Yeah, I like how you frame that idea of perspective and so you know, a lot of my background has been in startup companies, some that are doing really well, some that go out of business overnight, and my wife still razzles me to this day about some of the transitions that I made that, looking back, just didn’t make a lot of sense. But again, it’s this idea of trying to path out a career and say I’m going to make these exact moves and have them end me exactly where I want to be. I’m glad that didn’t happen for me and I just kind of enjoyed the ride, took opportunities that really made a lot of sense for me. In the moment. I have a weird personality and sort of the things that I like to do are very varied, and so again, I wasn’t sure that taking an operational type role made a lot of sense for my desire to be a US vice president of sales.
05:37
Now, looking back, it really speaks to exactly what you said perspective and a mentor of mine once said that there’s nothing more powerful on planet Earth.
05:45
Right, perspective is everything.
05:47
Einstein was not the brightest mathematician of his day, but what he had the ability to do is see a problem from a lot of different angles and that sort of analogy really stuck with me and so to this day that’s what I try to have is a lot of wide perspective around different issues, different organizational designs, different problems, and that’s what I had an opportunity to do here.
06:11
So it turned out that that background of being able to see how things work in compensation, how things work in operations, analytics right, getting salesforcecom up and running and maybe not doing it the right way, and learning some lessons, are all now really playing into what we’re doing here, and it’s a little bit different as an end user in the field when you see those things versus leading those internal strategic projects and understanding how to work with your internal partners to bring it all together for a great design. So now I’ve got an opportunity here to bring all that breadth of experience, that perspective, as you call it, to the table, and I think it’s made for a fantastic transition into ENT. I love it.
06:43 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So I think you know everyone hears titles like US Vice President of Sales and they assume, okay, it’s a high title, they’re a leader and they’re probably supposed to make the sales work. But why don’t you tell us, and tell the audience, what exactly are you responsible for as US Vice President of Sales?
07:02 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Yeah, that’s a great question, because I think that is a little bit of a misconception. You know, my role is probably 50% in the field, doing traditional sales work, working with customers, working with my sales leaders, driving the number, looking at analytics, looking at the reporting same things I was doing as a sales director in a sales organization, but as a VP of sales. There is this whole other aspect where I sit on my boss’s leadership team, where I’m working with international partners across the board to do things like finance, to do things like operations, to do things like marketing, and you’re expected to play a big role in those conversations. Some of the questions that come your way are different than you’ve ever seen in the field and the perspective, like we talked about earlier, really has to be a little bit different, because it’s not as simple as just driving top line revenue anymore, which is oftentimes your responsibility at the director level. On down in the field, you’re really responsible for the full P&L and so ensuring that not only redriving top line revenue but doing it efficiently is a whole nother aspect in ensuring that you’re putting the right pieces in place to drive, and so a lot of my work.
08:04
I have operations reporting to me some aspects of finance. I work marketing very closely. I work with my international partners. There’s all sorts of internal groups like compensation planning and everything else that you’re really well tied into. That could take up as much as half or three quarters of your week, and then you still have those top line responsibilities that you have to drive as well. So it’s a. It’s an incredibly varied role, more than I think people think it’s called US vice president of sales, but it’s a little bit of a jack of all trades kind of a kind of a kind of a role in every organization. That’s how it is here.
08:37 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Sure, sure, you know. So then, when it comes to your role, what would you say? You know that. That. That one question what keeps you up at night? You know, as US Vice President of Sales, you know what does keep you up at night. What’s usually that primary thing that you’re always thinking okay, I really got to be on top of this issue. It’s a great question.
09:00 – Chris Reese (Guest)
I think that you shouldn’t be in leadership if you don’t really care about people, and I don’t mean just as a buzzword or something that you’re supposed to do. That’s part of your job. You’ve got to wake up in the morning and go to bed at night thinking about the individuals around you, and what gets complex about this is the knowledge that the decisions that you’re making are going to affect a lot of people, and it’s not an unlimited amount of resources, an unlimited amount of people to run projects. So the challenge is the trade-offs, right, that prioritization on. We’re going to invest here, not here. We’re going to do this project, not that project.
09:36
You want to do it all right, and when you go to bed at night, you know that you’ve made some decisions on. We are not going to invest here, we’re not going to be able to make this decision or something I’m doing is going to impact these individuals, and it affects people, affects their families, affects patients, our customers. Right, the decisions you make touch so many people really around the entire country, and I would say that’s what really keeps me up at night is did I make the right decision? Am I doing the best I can? Is there something more that I can be doing, and I don’t think you’re cut out for that level role if that isn’t something that’s constantly on your mind as you go through your day.
10:11 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, allow me to dive a little deeper. So you’re US Vice President of Sales. You know, with anything, anytime you go from one role to another, I always like to think that in the newer role, you go from one role to another. I always like to think that in the newer role, there’s going to be a moment when you think to yourself whoa, you know, I’m here, I’m doing this now. Please, if you can take us to any moments you’ve had in the past year where it kind of hit you that wait a minute, yeah, I’m now US Vice President of Sales. Especially in the vein of being scared of making the wrong decision. Take us to a moment and experience what happened, where you realize that I don’t know that I’ll ever stop Right.
10:51 – Chris Reese (Guest)
It’s pretty common, I would say.
10:55 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Give us one that you’d like to share. How about that?
10:58 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Well, you know. Well, you know, when I knew I got the job and in preparation for coming on board, right, and it was almost panic, right, knowing that I need to step into this organization Day one. All eyes are on me, decisions that I make from that moment on. So I would say, you know, flying the plane over to my first day on the job, I was going to meet my leadership team for the very first time. I hadn’t met these individuals in person, you know, getting into the room and ensuring that, you know we were going to be focused on the right things, how that first day was going to run. And so I would say, walking into the office for the first time was when it really hit me like this is going to happen, right, and I had better. Hopefully I am. I feel like I’m prepared, but hopefully I am. And you find out about eight hours if this is the right move or not.
11:46 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That’s the moment that I remember. Wow Now would you say that it’s pretty much what you thought it would be going in, or would you say that it’s the opposite much what you thought it would be going in. Or would you say that it’s the opposite, it’s not what you thought it would be going in.
11:56 – Chris Reese (Guest)
And this is where I feel incredibly blessed, right, having the opportunity to work so closely with someone like a Sam Conaway and to watch a much bigger enterprise than I’m even running now. I would say that I was incredibly well-prepared for the opportunity. I had a lot of opportunities to kind of scrape my knees in a safe environment. Opportunity had a lot of opportunities to kind of scrape my knees in a safe environment, make bad decisions, have mentors pull me aside, say don’t ever do that again, do more of this, do less of that A lot of preparation gone into me as an individual.
12:27
That’s why something like mentoring is so critical and passionate, something I’m incredibly passionate about. I’m just incredibly blessed that I’ve had a lot of people pour into me and prepare me really well. And so, to answer the question, I felt really well prepared and there hasn’t been anything that completely threw me for a loop, and there’s always. It’s a little surprise and once you buy the car right and you started driving, you’re like, oh, hold on, the stick. Shift doesn’t feel quite like I thought it would in fifth gear.
12:46 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Sure.
12:46 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Your stuff, everything else. Overall, I feel like I was really well prepared.
12:50 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That’s amazing and I love what you said about. You know your passion in mentoring and making sure you were prepared to step into something that was a good fit. You know you and I had conversations about. What we do here at Evolve Success with helping professionals that want to enter medical sales, get positions and other programs that do this is that we spend a lot of time on making sure that student is a good fit for whatever the medical sales they’re considering or they’re thinking about or they even want to do. When you hear that, it jogs your memory on how important it is for a candidate to understand what the daily grind is actually going to look like. Talk to us a little bit about that. Being in this role that you’re in now. You’ve been hiring people. You know all the way up into this role and you’ve seen entry level all the way to senior leaders and how they need to kind of adjust to their new positions. What would you say around the qualities candidates need to bring in to truly being a performer in medical sales?
13:52 – Chris Reese (Guest)
So first and foremost is the grind right. I think the first thing that hits you is how challenging a role like this is, and it starts from the day that they offer you the job, they send you the books that you’re going to be studying and you start to realize whoa, this is a lot. And if you’re someone that isn’t accustomed to overcoming obstacles, you know pushing through boundaries that make you really uncomfortable. If those aren’t skill sets that you’re accustomed and muscles that you’ve already sort of have pre-built in, those are something you’re going to want to work on prior to getting a role in medical device. This passion for people, which really, in the individual contributor role, translates down to the patients, and having a real passion for the outcomes that’s going to happen for those patients, I think is incredibly critical and you need to be thinking about. You know the last time you drove a family member to the emergency room and how you felt about the individuals waiting on the other side of the line. There are times where you get tired, there are times where you get stressed out, there are times where you have a quota to hit, but you can never forget about really that core center of everything that we do, that there’s a patient on the other end of a lot of those decisions that you make, and you should not be taking shortcuts, and if you feel like that’s something you would do, this would not be the career for you. So a real passion for patients, I would say a grind and sort of a natural curiosity there’s never.
15:08
It’s an endless cycle of learning.
15:10
If you’re in this industry it’s not like, um, you know, maybe say finance, where you’ve just got to really learn everything there is to learn, and one day you’ve kind of got it all down and you just do that for the rest of your career. Because here, as soon as you have it down, everything changes. And I’ve seen that throughout my career where, you know, I thought I was finally there and I thought I knew what I was doing, and the entire industry around me has changed, requiring me to go, and it’s incredible to me how that never ends. And so things like COVID come around and you think, ok, this is just a one time event, if I can get through this, I’ll be fine. And you come out of COVID and someone calls you and says, hey, have you used chat GPT? And you’re thinking, what, how do I incorporate that into an entire. So it’s just constant curiosity. So I say curiosity, passion for people and that endless grind to succeed and be successful are three elements you really want to have as a core foundation, absolutely.
16:03 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So I want to ask you about just the prevalence of medical sales professionals today. Yeah, so let’s go back 20, 30 years. Would you say that when you were a younger professional, you would hear whispers of, yeah, in the future, there’s going to be no reps, they’re not going to be needed anymore? Did you hear that kind of talk back then? Oh yeah, oh, yeah, okay, all right, now take us to 2024, especially in your position. Would you say that there are more reps than there’s ever been? Or would you say that there’s some truth to the decline? Or would you say it’s kind of been the same?
16:44 – Chris Reese (Guest)
What’s your? What’s your two cents on that? Yeah, I just saw a podcast by Simon Sinek the other day and he was talking about AI and some of the advancements in this fear that we’re all going to be replaced and they’re not going to have a need for us anymore. I think it’s a natural human inclination to believe that and to be concerned about that. I don’t think that’s unusual at all, and so what he was talking about is that these jobs don’t go away. They just change right. And he used the example of kind of his editor, where someone was creating news articles for him to go to press and that that job may evolve or even go away.
17:14
But then what becomes more important is Chet Chibiti can do a first draft for you, but somebody has to edit that. Maybe something that’s not as valuable now will become critically important later, so he can go on, create kind of a first draft, make some small edits, pass that on to somebody else. There’s still a need for a person. It’s a one-to-one, if not more people and so just because IT consulting did not exist 20 years ago doesn’t mean that everybody’s going away. I don’t know what people were doing right on typewriters back in the 90s.
17:41
Those jobs, yes, have gone away. There are more jobs now than ever. I see the same exact thing within medical device, where we have more reps than ever. Out there you really is. We haven’t found another way to replace the individuals that are in the field connected. There’s just too much of a need out there to answer questions, get in the operating room, do consulting, but the job has absolutely changed. But going away, I don’t see that happening at all and I’m sure those rumors will continue forever. I can tell you, if my boss would allow me to, I could hire you know, we’ve got plenty of work to do over here. Believe, me.
18:18
You know, after this show is everyone’s going to be just I’ve got to get the budget first, but yes, there are plenty of opportunities.
18:26 – 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. 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 a 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.
19:23
So then you would say then you agree that there are more medical sales professionals than ever, and you’ve just said that it’s more. According to that Simon Sinek podcast that you watched, it’s even more about the differentiation within those roles than anything else, which in some cases, has made even more medical sales reps move out 15, 20 years. Do you see? You know, double the volume that we see now. Do you see a different approach? I know it’s way out there, but give us something. Where do you see things going as we advance into later years with the way things are right now?
20:00 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Kind of following out that timeline of the role’s not going away, it’s just changing, and so it is what I would call right is kind of getting into being an old guy here. I think the job seems harder to me, right, and so maybe if someone came up with the tools that I didn’t have when I was a kid, maybe it isn’t, but for someone like myself, I mean I’m blown away at how complex the role of a medical device rep is now, and so you know, things like access into a hospital where you can just kind of go in and get access, are gone, which means you have to work harder to get those appointments, to have a reason to be there. When I started, you just drove up, parked and walked in. You could walk in any operating room and, you know, tuck the patient in if you wanted to. I mean it’s pretty crazy to think of what you could get away with back then, and for very good reason. Right. As a patient, I’m glad that things have evolved to the point where there is more security around HIPAA. Right, there is greater challenges to having access, and so you have to be a smarter individual. You have to be a little more crafty in your approach. You’ve got to work a little bit harder to get the same things done that I did, which in turn requires more people to do the job, and so, if you think about things like quoting for any sort of equipment that you’re going to be using out there, there was no such thing as value analysis committees when I first came into medical device, and now those things are prevalent. These are really high level professionals who are doing a great job on being discerning about which equipment is coming into a hospital that’s going to be best for their patients, and they need someone to answer all of those questions. There’s a lot of nuance and the machines have gotten far more complex.
21:31
My first jobs were around spine and biologics, and so it was screws and rods.
21:36
I mean, you look at spine today and where it is, I mean it’s a lot of robotics, it’s a lot of artificial intelligence that goes into these things. When I look at that industry I just think, wow, and a rep has to know about all of those things. I thought it was hard enough just to know the screw that I was selling and the rods. I mean when I look back, it didn’t seem that complex. I just see it evolving, becoming a much more high level profession. I could probably see the continuation of programs out there to teach people prior to coming into the industry what the role is about, and I don’t know if that starts a kind of undergrad or master’s programs. But that’s where I really appreciate services like you offer, where someone can come in and learn all these things prior to coming in, because what we’re finding is more and more we don’t have the resources to teach someone anymore from step one to step 10, because step one through step three is a lot more complex than it was when I first came into the industry.
22:29 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you know in ENT, do you have any sort of distributorships in that space, or is it not so?
22:39 – Chris Reese (Guest)
much, I would say no, we do have a few distributors just depending on. You know, really distant markets like Hawaii is an example but very few and far between. It’s not a big model for ENT, given where the industry is right now. I’d say that’s far more prevalent, you know, in things like orthopedics and other markets that are out there. But it doesn’t mean that that can’t change at any given moment.
23:00 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, and I want to talk somewhat about that, but I realize that we did not define what ENT is and, as you know, Chris, we have a lot of people listening that are brand new to any of this. Please educate the audience on what it means to be an ENT.
23:21 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Yeah, this one makes.
23:21 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I think a little more sense just because it’s ears, nose and throat, so it’s not too far beyond that.
23:24 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Unlike you, know some of the names of these other industries, like neurovasculars, right? So that’s what we work on. We work on the ears, the nose, the throat and kind of anything head related. And again, this industry has gotten a lot more complex over the years, where we offer things now like navigational systems to navigate certain instruments, because there’s very sensitive structures that you want to make sure that you avoid, and that’s evolving incredibly rapidly as well. We continue to incorporate those things into our business. Those things into our business. We’re getting into things like biologics.
23:54
So what does make our industry tough is, in my particular business, we sell every single type of product to every different what we call site of service, and so traditionally you might sell spine equipment, as an example, one kind of product line, disposables as an example, into a hospital system and that becomes your full-time job. You get really, really good at that over the course of maybe 15 or 20 years. Here the fun side of it is it’s never. It’s ever evolving, it’s changing. But the challenge is we’re selling capital equipment, which is, you know, big pieces of equipment that they’re going to place in the corner of an operating room as an example, we sell the disposables that go with that equipment over the course of years while they’re using that equipment.
24:34
We sell things like biologics. We even sell a pharmaceutical I mean, we are in just about every single type of industry out there for product type and then we sell it to every site of service, so not just to hospitals, not just to surgery centers, but also to physician offices, and those three sites of service operate very differently. So the types of individuals that we’re bringing on have to be incredibly strong business professionals, clinical professionals. There is a lot that goes into being a rep for ENT, but it’s also one of the things that we all enjoy so much about this particular industry, because you get your hands on so many different things out there, unlike what you can do elsewhere.
25:10 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love your spine and ENT comparisons because even now we see that when new folks that just want to get involved, spine and ortho is what everybody knows about. That’s just the most common medical sales around only for people to realize that that’s just a fraction of what’s available. But on that note, with spine and ortho, and then you have ENT. But on that note, you know, with spine and ortho and then you have ENT, what’s the ENT day in the life? You know? Describe for us what the ENT day in life looks like in comparison to like a spine roll or something like that.
25:43 – Chris Reese (Guest)
So it depends on the side of service you’re focused on. If you’re calling on physician offices an example you may have a day set up where you’re going to go and visit call it five different offices and so you need to get out of bed, route out where you’re going to be going, what you’re going to be talking to those accounts about, and oftentimes the business is pushing us right. So there are requests for you to come in and quote a new piece of equipment. There’s a conversation you may have had at a conference a few weeks prior over the weekend you may have met some new physicians who are just curious about some of the things that we’re doing at Medtronic ENT and you’re going to go in and educate them. A physician relationship you have may have staff that’s brand new and they say, hey, there’s persons new to our office and you need to come in and educate them. So you might do something called a lunch and learn or a breakfast and learn, or you may take them out to a dinner and kind of explain around a roundtable and drive a really good discussion around some of the things that are going on in ENT and how our equipment and things that we offer fit into that. So that could be like in the office space, the surgery center space, a little different.
26:39
On the other side of the spectrum, we have the hospitals, which is a huge, multi-billion dollar business oftentimes, and so you may be going in to meet with the CEO, you might be having a conversation with the CFO around different programs that we’re now offering as we move around different financing options, or something on those lines. It might be a clinical discussion with an entire floor of nursing staff. Or you may have just sold a brand new piece of capital equipment but nobody knows how to use the new features and you might be going in to educate on that. Or there could be an issue with the machine in a different part of town and you need to kind of run over there in the middle of the day and help the staff kind of get the machine back up and running and do some troubleshooting to fix that issue.
27:18
And so it’s an incredibly varied job that requires IT knowledge, clinical knowledge, business knowledge, finance knowledge, because you could be called on at any moment, at any time, to deal with any of those things and you have to maintain your customer relationships, and so, again, that’s why it really comes back to the people You’ve got to really enjoy. If someone calls you and they’re an hour away and you have to jump in your car and go over there, right, there’s a little pool that each of us has that’s successful in the business. I got to get there right. I really have to be there for this person and those are the individuals that really succeed in this business.
27:50 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love it so let’s talk about why someone should consider ENT, and let’s start with the active sales reps out there that are in all these other spaces, whether it’s neuromodulation, spine or ortho or what have you. What would you tell the audience right now, the working sales professionals that are in medical sales, and they’re happy where they are, but they’re thinking about making a move because they just want more or they want a different skill set and want to start developing something. Why should they look to ENT?
28:21 – Chris Reese (Guest)
This can be a difficult place to start your career, and so if you’re fresh and new and you’re coming in, we’re doing a better job at creating what we call associate programs to bring people in, teach them one aspect of the business. It would just simply be too much to say go fix that machine, have a financial conversation right, drive a clinical discussion and get in the operating room and make sure that the patient doesn’t, you know, get injured. It’s too much, it wouldn’t be good for us, the customers, and definitely not for the patients. And so we’re developing some of those programs. But, to your point, someone who’s been in the industry for a while and has gotten good at one of those aspects right, maybe they’ve gotten really good at capital equipment. They want to expand out their career.
28:59
Ent is the perfect place to do that. Maybe they sell disposables, right and they want to expand that out. Or they’re great at pharmaceuticals and want to get into medical device, those are individuals joining our team as well, because we sell everything across the entire. We’re the only unit uh, business unit within Medtronic that sells every single type. That is no. I don’t know any other business out there quite like that. So if you’re looking to. If you again, you have that natural intellectual curiosity, if you’d like to never be bored, this is a perfect place to really go to really expand out. And the reality is I mean, ents are a phenomenal physician group. The industry is evolving, right. Ent is maybe one of the newer medical device specialties out there. I wouldn’t be surprised that if in five or 10 years you start to hear man, all I hear about is ENT and orthopedics and spine right, the big three, the work where we’re growing rapidly. The industry is growing rapidly, it’s evolving.
29:53
So it reminds me of some of the other businesses right, Like pain management, as an example. They were a little smaller 20 years ago and now we’re multi-billion dollar industries, multiple competitors across the board, a really wide variety of things that they’re offering. The future is really bright for what we’re doing, and so I think there’s a lot to be excited about when it comes to ENT.
30:11 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That is truly exciting. Now I have to ask and of course you can only share what you can share but can you get us excited about any of the upcoming ENT technology? I mean, tell us something. Tell us something you know. When I look at medical sales, I think of in every vertical within medical sales there’s the common knowledge Whatever people think goes on when it comes to that disease, state, condition or procedure, and then there’s what’s really going on in all technology behind it. Give us that for ENT. What do people think ENT and it’s happening in that space, and what are some of the cool things that are coming that no one would know or understand unless they were, of course, in that space?
30:52 – Chris Reese (Guest)
That’s a great question. I know what I know about our pipeline and there’s the element of what I don’t know right, and if you look at the entire industry, that I can absolutely speak to in terms of where it’s all going, and so I would use the analogy of pain management as an example, Pain management.
31:09
When I first got into it, oftentimes it was needles providing injections for pain in the lower back right. They did these things called ESIs epidural steroid injections to relieve pain, and oftentimes those aren’t a fix. It’s just sort of a cover-up for the pain and if you want to fix the pain you had to go see a spine surgeon. So oftentimes pain management and spine were in the same specialty, treating the continuum of care for that patient. Over time, with different products and skill sets, the pain management physicians developed this ability to look at a fluoroscopy machine and minimally invasively help the patient out with small, little tiny, small incision types of procedures. That has led to a boom in minimally invasive spine devices. I mean all sorts of different biologics that are being offered for disc replacements. They need to be placed through very sensitive nerves in the body and navigated in a very special way, and they have the perfect skill set to do it.
32:01
When I think of ENT, I see something very similar happening, where they have this minimally invasive approach where they can access just about any part of the head and neck, and so, as you can imagine, there is a lot of different ways to access different problems that you see in any structure of the body, you know, as it relates to the head and neck, and so I’m seeing this physician type have that specialty. I think we’re all seeing a move away from hospitals towards the office. It’s not happening incredibly rapidly but it is absolutely growing more in surgery centers and offices and reimbursement and some other things are really driving that for the patient benefit. Outpatient care is growing. When I first got into this it was, you know, two months stay in the hospital.
32:42
If you had a surgery, you might not leave for four months, right. They had to get rehabilitated, yeah, out same day now. So where I see is E&T wanting to be a part of that. Right, we want to have minimally invasive options for these physicians to treat the patients where they want, but in a way that’s really taking advantage of all the technologies that are out there. The latest technologies and navigation, artificial intelligence all those can be incorporated into the things that we’re selling, and there’s a lot of great ideas out there that entrepreneurs and small companies are working on that we keep a close eye on. So, again, I think, the future. I don’t know exactly where it’s going, but I can tell you it’s really bright, it’s growing fast and we’re going to be there for it Something to be excited about.
33:22 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
We got to have a follow up in about about six months to a year, Chris, and learn what all the developments that have been happening. So you know. How do you make this all work? Talk to us a little bit about your daily routine. Do you have a family that you have to manage as well as managing this entire division, or is it just? You know what’s the setup here. How do you make this all work? Talk to us.
33:48 – Chris Reese (Guest)
I’m glad you think I’m making it all work. So, first and foremost, I’m trying to make it all work. It’s a lot Right, and this time of year is incredibly challenging just from the standpoint of Medtronic is on a fiscal year calendar, and so the end of Q4 for us most people, that ended a while back, in December. For us it just ended, and then we’re on to our new year, and so this is my first cycle going through closing out all the activities from last year appropriately and then ramping up for all the new activities that we have coming up, and so a lot of my work right now is back in our home office, which is in Jacksonville, florida. We’re working on things like compensation planning, right organizational structure, what we want to do for our national meeting that’s coming up this year, which we’re all really excited about, and the planning around that, ensuring that everyone’s got the right and proper training that they have. We have some new roles we’ve opened up, making sure that that’s all done appropriately, and so you know a lot of the work there, and that’s just the internal side of the job, right?
34:42
I have to make sure that I’m staying connected to our customers, staying connected to our patients. So you know, it’s not uncommon for me to be in our home office for a couple of days a week and then out in the field with whatever team members I can get out with for key customer visits, dinners, visits, things along those lines, to make sure I’m staying connected there and that’s what I truly love about the job. And then I do get to see my family every now and then of all of those activities. So what I do is I really try to make it a point to be home on the weekends whenever possible. Sometimes it’s just not. But you know, I think my kids know they do a lot of sports activities. We’re running around like crazy. I enjoy that. I’m a full soccer dad. On the weekend I get to take the business suit off and focus, and that’s one of the other benefits of ENT. There isn’t like my world in spine where procedures could be going on seven days a week, really long cases, things along those lines.
35:42 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
It’s a little different in ENT, where you can kind of make that possible, and it’s been a blessing for the family. They’ve enjoyed it as well. That is fantastic, Chris, this has been a true pleasure to have you with us today talking about ENT and your new role as US Vice President. We have one more thing to do before we wrap things up here, but before I do that, is there anything else you wanted to share with the audience?
35:56 – Chris Reese (Guest)
No, this has been great, Samuel. You’ve been a great friend and a colleague for me. The work that you do, I think, is something critically important, not just to me personally but to this entire industry. I’m passionate about opening up opportunities to get into this business. It’s hard for everyone right to figure out that pathway in, and you’re a phenomenal guide to get people onto that role, and so I’m just really blessed to be here today and we finally got a chance to connect. It’s been a little and you know we’ll see what the what the future brings for us man.
36:25 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Thank you, Chris. Okay, so before I let you go, we got one more thing to do. It’s called the lightning round. I’m gonna ask you four questions. You have less than 10 seconds to answer. Each one are Are you ready? Let’s do it. Let’s do it All right. So first question what is the best book you have read in the last six months?
36:43 – Chris Reese (Guest)
So I’m big on this book right now called Leading Beyond Change.
36:48 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Oh, Leading Beyond Change? That’s actually a good question. I have to pull up the author, we’ll find it. We’ll find it. Leading Beyond Change. Is it recent or it’s an older one?
36:57 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Probably recent, probably the last two to three years. It was written and it takes a completely different approach to you know, senior level sales leadership and management’s change management and it talks a lot about working on us as leaders and working on our organization and being ready for consistent change, which is what we’re seeing.
37:14
I mean, I think what’s throwing a lot of people off right now is that it’s not like the old models of let’s do one big change initiative every couple of years, settle in another big change initiative. Change is coming at us and it’s really fast, and so leading beyond change, I think, really nails it for that. And you know something I would definitely pick up and read.
37:33 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That will be in the show notes everyone.
37:42 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Fantastic. That will be in the show notes, everyone. Okay. Next question what is the best TV show or movie you’ve seen in the last six months? Tv show or movie. So my wife and I have gone back to Peaky Blinders finally. Oh, that’s good stuff, Gosh, we don’t get a ton of time together, but we’ve only gotten through season one, and that’s what’s on my mind right now. I can’t wait Season four the best. So we’re working our way there and it’s an incredible show. It blew me away, so that’s awesome.
38:00 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That is awesome. All right, and then best meal you’ve had the last six months. We want the restaurant and the item and the location called Main Table.
38:21 – Chris Reese (Guest)
It’s in Jacksonville, florida, and they have a dessert dish. It’s vanilla, ice cream, rock salt, olive oil a set of ingredients that would not make you want to have this item at all. And it’s one of the most enjoyable things for me to bring people to this restaurant, really convince them to try this thing out and know that first bite they’re a little apprehensive but, and then it quickly tastes.
38:41 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
What’s that?
38:42 – Chris Reese (Guest)
it quickly becomes an acquired taste you’re going to want rock salt and vanilla ice cream and everything that you do moving forward.
38:47 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Where is this?
38:48 – Chris Reese (Guest)
again. So main table it’s in uh jacksonville, florida. It’s maybe five miles from our home office. It’s an outdoor seating, it’s it’s a great little spot.
38:55 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Oh man, that will also be in the show notes, folks. And then, last but not least, what’s the best experience you’ve had in the last six months?
39:03 – Chris Reese (Guest)
Best experience that I’ve had. I would say this is the first year that I’ve been able to enjoy Christmas with my family. Every year that I’ve been in medical device most organizations, that’s, you know, between December 25th and January 1st you’re closing out the year, you’re grinding hard, that’s all you can keep your mind on. Right, in sales job depends on those POs that are going to come in in those last six days. So oftentimes patients right, they’re coming up on the end of their benefits and so they’ve already met their deductibles and they’re doing procedures. So physicians take Christmas and they’re right back in the office, and that last week is usually stacked with a lot of cases. And so here in ENT that’s not a big driver, right. The reimbursement aspect of that doesn’t drive a ton of procedures there in the last week, you know somewhat, but not the way I’ve seen it in other industries. And because Medtronic is on that fiscal year and what’s nice is the end of their quarters are actually not even January 1st, and so there’s really not as much pressure there, right, you can actually take the time.
40:09
All the internal employees are able to go and spend time with their family. The external team can do the same. It’s the first, you know, first year ever, that I would say. Mid-afternoon on Christmas, right when I was getting ready to kind of go back into fight or flight mode, I was like actually I can take a couple of days, relax a little bit, and I think it meant the world to my family to be able to do that. So that memory really sticks out to me. First Christmas in a long time.
40:32 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That’s amazing, Chris. Again, thank you for the time this was. It was a true gem hearing from you and learning from you. Thank you for being on the Medical Sales Podcast. Thank you, sammy, I appreciate it Absolutely. And that was, Chris Reese, fantastic stuff.
40:47
You know, what I really loved about this episode is the acknowledgement that medical sales has become this ever-evolving space. You know the fact that years ago, 20 years ago, they were saying that in the future there’s going to be no medical sales reps. Nobody wants to see them. It’s just going to be so far and few and in between. And what have you? And here we are in 2024, and there are more medical sales that’s working than there ever was.
41:18
It’s fascinating to see that industry that almost had no voice really have become some of the biggest industries around, like pain management, and look what we’re seeing now with ENT. You know this is the career of opportunity. This is the kind of space where you can really be anyone from any background and find something that speaks to you if you really care about impacting the outcomes of patients. So for those of you listening right now that have been on the fence about getting into medical sales, maybe you really don’t know what the opportunity is. Or maybe you’ve danced around it but you haven’t really taken that step forward. Or maybe you’ve danced around it but you haven’t really taken that step forward, or maybe you’ve been taking steps and you’re just getting absolutely nowhere. Then you already know what I’m going to say.
42:02
Visit evolveyoursuccesscom, select the application, fill out our application and let’s get in touch with somebody one of our account executives that can show you how this program can literally change your life and put you into a medical sales career position and then truly set you up for success. You know we don’t talk enough about what happens after you get the job. Everybody talks about getting the job and we’re so happy we’re in a position to help you do that. But one thing I love that I think separates us is we spend a lot of time and how do you show up when you have that job and actually how the process of getting the job almost can resemble what your experience of having the job can look like. So how do you go about the process correctly and truly set yourself up for success?
42:49
Again, thank you always for listening to the Medical Sales Podcast. We do our best to bring you guests that are doing things differently in this 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 EvolvingSuccesscom 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.
Medical Territory Manager!
I was a Regional Sales Representative for Long-Term Care pharmacy services. I had dreamed of getting into the med sales industry when I went into my career as a nurse, but the pharmacy sales job came to me, and I had just settled. Fortunately, I had a job shakeup that allowed me to determine that now was the time to pursue my original vision.
I absolutely would not have this position without Samuel and the Evolve Your Success community. A lot of people my age would just stop trying, but EYS believed in me.
EYS allowed me to break into the industry in 90-Days after I had been trying on my own for over two years! I had lots of recruiter screenings, and a few interviews with hiring managers, but I was never offered a position.
Before EYS, I didn’t realize I was doing the bare minimum to get hired. I was applying everywhere, hoping to get noticed and waiting. It just wasn’t working! I didn’t know that that was not enough to compete in an industry this sought after, and against people who knew what I didn’t know about the process.
Of course, I had to think hard before making a financial investment that’s reasonably substantial. But when I read the testimonials of real med sales reps on the site and learned that I wasn’t the only one taking a chance on my success, that EYS was sharing that risk also, I knew I had to do it. Though you might be able to cobble together some of the steps of getting a role in med sales from online research on your own, you just can’t know what you don’t know!
The process of going through EYS presents this insider knowledge to the student, as well as giving you a progression of difficulty as you obtain the information, and you begin to master it. Not only that, but they give you access to amazing mentors and instructors, allow you to practice your interview skills, and teach you how to market yourself through social media and your own website! I cannot stress enough that EYS was the factor that made the difference in my successfully landing my dream job! The support, structure, and knowledge gained was invaluable!
I would recommend this course to ANYONE looking to break into medical sales
Thank you so much, EYS! This journey has been life changing and has resulted in the successful culmination of my 18-Year ambition! 
Sports Medicine in Phoenix! I extend so much gratitude to the Evolve Your Success group as I land this role and get ready to pursue my dream job. I am a Physical Therapist who became a little stuck in the profession due to issues with reimbursement and the difficulty for continued growth upwards. I turned to EYS to assist me in learning about the medical sales industry and gain knowledgable mentors who were able to help coach me in this process. I am a strong believer in surrounding yourself with the best and good things will happen. I did work hard, but with the support of my mentors and other colleagues going through a career change, I felt a sense of community and it confirmed my drive to get into this industry. I have already learned so much through the interview process, and feel very blessed to have had the resources this group provided. I have made lifelong friends and I cannot wait to continue to follow others’ journeys to pursue this incredible field. I urge you to give Evolve Your Success a try to gain mentorship, guidance, and support through any career transition.
and am excited to make a difference in patients’ lives as a Pharmaceutical Sales Specialist.
! Though I truly enjoyed working as a physical therapist, I can’t wait to start my career in the sales world as a Clinical Account Executive.
. I owe this opportunity to Samuel, the program, and the incredible mentors at EYS.
