Unlock the secrets to excelling in medical sales! This episode promises to inspire and educate as we welcome Jon Alwinson, a veteran in the endoscopy sector, to share his remarkable career journey. Delve into Jon’s personal story, from the influence of his author father to his own four-year endeavor of writing a book aimed at guiding future medical sales reps. Gain firsthand insights into the nuances of working with gastroenterologists, the dynamics of outpatient surgery centers, and the profound impact of patient care through feedback from healthcare providers.
His career path was anything but predictable, and he opened up about the valuable lessons learned from launching a footwear manufacturing venture with his brother before pivoting to the medical device industry. From his early days at Stryker to achieving milestones at EndoChoice, the shared experiences highlight the importance of persistence, adaptability, and a commitment to lifelong learning. Listen as we unpack the motivations and challenges behind writing his book and discuss how these experiences have shaped his professional journeys.
For those eager to up their sales game, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and time management tips. Discover the essential elements that can catapult you to the top tier of medical sales, including meticulous pre-call planning and balancing professional and personal life. We also tackle the common challenges in the field, the role of mentorship, and the importance of self-confidence. Round off your listening with details about an innovative program designed to elevate your medical sales career, and stay tuned for more insightful interviews in upcoming episodes.
Meet the guest:
Jon Alwinson boasts more than 15 years of sales experience, serving as both an individual sales contributor and a regional manager. Throughout his career, he has won numerous awards and has played a pivotal role in guiding his team and other individuals to secure them as well. Every year, Jon mentors one or more territory managers to reach the prestigious Presidents Club. Residing in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Sandra and their two children, 7-year-old Ansley and 5-year-old Easton, Jon describes his family as the source of his greatest happiness.
ATLANTA, GA
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Available by phone at 407-625-7223
Social Media
Facebook Jon Alwinson
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X: @RelentlessSales
Website: jonalwinson.com
Email: jon@alwinsonbooks.com
His book:
Relentless Sales: The Skills, Mentality, & Faith Needed to Be Great in Sales (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMPBZ165/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_Y0MGE7A50FBHK4EWZ2TT?skipTwisterOG=1)
Best Book – The Book on Mental Toughness by Andy Frisella
Best Food/Restaurant – South City Kitchen, in Atlanta GA — Fried Chicken or Steak
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Episode Transcript
00:07 – 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 can change your life. Hello, welcome to the Medical Sales Podcast. I’m your host, Samuel, and today we have another guest by the name of Jon Alwinson.
01:06
Now, this guy is quite spectacular with everything he has going on. He just released a brand new book and you know what? I’m not even going to give you the name, because that means you got to listen to the episode and check the show notes and get a copy. But the book is fantastic. It dives deep into how to sell, what it means to sell and, more specifically, what it means to sell in the medical sales space, coming from someone who was an entrepreneur, who was a sales rep himself in about four to five different medical sales industries, including ortho and now endoscopy, and is currently a sales leader with a significant team for a well well-known medical device technology company and I’m not gonna tell you the name of that either, because the other is the episode.
01:47
So, again, we do our best to bring you guests that are doing things differently in the medical sales space. I really do hope you enjoy this interview. We are absolutely gonna promote this book, but I gotta ask, man, you know, take me inside. You know what happened that inspired you to say you know what? I’m going to write this down and I’m going to publish something.
02:10 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, a couple different things. One I’ve always had it. My dad’s an author as well, so he has one book out working on another one I’ve always wanted to. What he kind of coached me on was like writing your playbook. It’s really therapeutic, right. Writing what you tell your younger self is a therapeutic process, and for me it was really cool going on that creative journey writing a book and then ultimately I wrote it to help that next generation of sellers. Honestly, your audience listening is like me 15 years ago. That’s who I wrote this book for Makes sense.
02:46 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, how long did it take you?
02:50 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
This one took me about four years, to be honest, took me a long time. I wrote it. It was a work in progress, stop, start. And then at one point I had a friend said Jon, you’re writing a book, just tell yourself you’re writing it, and um, and that pushed me over and and honestly got through. I had a buddy, my editor, zach Swee, come on board and like help me polish it, and um, I think I finally figured out how to do it now, but it took me four years of stumbling.
03:18 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, we’re going to get deep into all of it, but let’s, let’s let’s backtrack a little bit.
03:31 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
So what, what faith? What space are you in today? So I’m in the endoscopy space. So, uh, call on gastroenterologists, call on generals, call on colorectal docs, but primarily GI docs.
03:35 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So let’s talk about it what you know, if you could qualify the endoscopy space for someone listening right now that has no idea what that actually means, right?
03:46 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
please share yeah, the um, the gi space, I think is one of the best spaces in medical device. I’ve called on neuro, spine, ent, ortho. Gi docs for the most part are pretty cool. They’re down to earth, like they’re. They’re plumbers for our you know anatomy Right and they’re just like they don’t have they usually don’t have too big of egos. So I love working with GIs. They’re smart, they’re cool, they’re down to earth and honestly I think endo is one of the best kept secrets in med device. Wow.
04:17 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, so let’s, let’s get into it then. So endo, you know a lot of people are learning. What does it mean to have an elective uh space? What does it mean to not even be in the hospital or in any of our room? What does it mean to have trauma? Talk to us about endo, is it?
04:34 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
elective. How does it work? What’s, yeah, go ahead? Yeah, in my space in particular, it’s all elective. So I call on outpatient surgery centers. So I have 10 people on my team. I cover eight states in the southeast and um, and so we are all outpatient elective based GI procedures. Now there are occasions with our hospital counterparts where you know something comes up you have jaundice, you have some kind of issue where you need to go in for an emergency GI case or there’s some kind of bleeding. Those would be more urgent cases, more hospital based cases. Mine are, the procedures that we cover are all elective.
05:07 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, now patient impact is so critical. Right, and every different type of medical sales has a different type of patient impact. Yes, in the endoscopy space do you get to know what happens to the patient? Is it more so you’re removed? But you get to learn through the provider or through the physician. Talk to us.
05:22 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, we learn post-procedure through the provider primarily. Most of these cases are very predictable, so the outcome is usually a very, very good outcome and a favorable outcome. However, there are those cases where you text the doctor and say, hey, checking in on that case from the other day, how’d that patient end up? And I think that’s just a good tip for whatever industry you’re in, whether you’re an ortho neuro spine falling up with your surgeon or GI and just say, hey, how’d that case go? Checking on that patient is a is a feather in a cap Awesome.
05:54 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So, you know, I love asking this question because you just made a bold claim, sir. You just said that you have the best space and you even called out the other ones, which is all fair. Yeah, I’ve done it. What’s the moment where you know take us back to that procedure, or what was happening? Paint the picture where you said, okay, this is it, this is, this is the coolest space.
06:21 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, what I love about GI is unlike these orthopedic procedures, these neuro procedures where you wake up at 4am, you drive an hour, you get there, you get the trays ready, the doctor shows up two hours late, You’re sitting in a freezing cold OR for two hours right the real talk. This is a very predictable 15 to 30 minute procedure, right, when you know if cases start at 7am, you know they’re starting at 7am. You can walk in to a procedure. That’s not, you know people aren’t overly tense, it’s hey, we’ve been here before, this is, we know what we’re doing here. This is not highly urgent and it is a more relaxed environment to where you can think, you can learn, you can ask very thought-provoking questions and it’s a worry-free zone for the most part.
07:13 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I like it, I like it. Yeah. What’s the sales cycle for endoscopy it?
07:19 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
depends. Right, we sell everything. We sell primarily disposables or single-use items. In our space. We do sell some capital, and so it depends on what items you’re selling. We sell services and solutions as well, so depends on what you sell, but they are, I mean, and again, even within the disposable items, you might sell a higher ticket disposable that takes six to 12 months and you might sell one that’s a single call close, and so it’s hard for me to give you an exact example. I will give you, I would say, two to three months probably is a fair, a fair cycle.
07:54 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, that’s fair. And then, when it comes to the money, you know people are starting to realize. It’s fascinating how educated the public has become about what medical sales is, because I remember what 10 years ago nope, it was like the secret industry. Now you’ve got kids coming out of college giving you a dissertation on what it means to be in spine sales. But what is the money? You know what’s the money range for someone that wants endoscopy from the beginning of the career, to max it out and be in the top 10%.
08:23 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
That’s a great question, I think fair. You know if you’re coming in as a associate sales rep in that range you know just sub six figure range probably to you know you can kind of double that two and a half X that you know for those. You know higher end users, not higher end users, but you know what I mean. Those those individuals. So I think, I think that’s a fair range.
08:48 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Nice, so really well. Endoscopy makes sense why it’s one of the best spaces. You got the time, you’re quick in and out, your time is valued and you can get compensated well where you’re making a whole bunch of patient impact.
09:00 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s the main thing it’s all about, really, you know, and you know this being as successful as you are I mean, when you put the patient first, that’s everything and everything flows from that If you do have that patient first mindset.
09:14 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Love it. So what is the team buildup of an endoscopy team, you know, is it a solo rep with an associate? Is it a clinical specialist associate and a solo rep? How does it all work?
09:24 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, so let’s break our division into two different divisions. So we’ve got our hospital core team. That really founded the company right. Our company was built off our hospital reps, so we have those hospital reps. They usually have an associate, divided between two or three different reps, and then the ambulatory surgery center team, or ASC team, that I lead and cover. We primarily just have territory managers with no direct associate at this time. So they have a defined geography, call it. I have two in Atlanta. I have an east and a west and no associates. So that’s a good way of describing it.
10:02 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Very cool. So ASCs is that relatively new, the team that’s specifically on ASCs, or has that been around for a while?
10:10 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
You know it’s funny, Boston Scientific we’ve been kind of a leader in the space where we saw procedure volume going there years ago and I was part of an acquisition a small company called EndoChoice and I was a rep at that time and we came over with the acquisition and at that time, seven years ago, we started this new, brand new channel dedicated to serving our ASC customers, because we know their needs are different. We know price sensitivity is higher in ASCs versus hospitals and so what was cool was I got to come in at the founding level of this new channel and be a part of this great organization.
10:47 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, I remember right before COVID, ASCs just seemed to be exploding and so many companies were creating ASC specific dedicated teams. And so now it’s to hear that it’s just so commonplace. Yeah it’s pretty cool.
11:03 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, striker and our organization were the two that really got on it early. We both saw the market moving to outpatient and again getting both organizations credit. That’s fantastic.
11:16 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So let’s go back. Let’s find out what and how you had all the experience to finally conclude on endo and be the rock star that you are. So going back to college yeah, senior year. Are we thinking I’m about to be the best rep you’ve ever seen? Or are we clueless and we’re doing something else?
11:33 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Man being honest with you. Senior year of college, I knew nothing of what I wanted to do with my life, and I’m one of those few that my whole life. My parents, I think they’re like what are we going to do with Jon? Like we don’t know what to do with him, Like my parents had no idea how to guide me and at that time, my brother and I were starting an entrepreneurial venture. We started a footwear manufacturing company.
11:56
So my senior year of college, we raised capital and we started manufacturing shoes in East Asia and we’re selling to. You know, the first four or five years of my career, we were selling private label and also our own brand shoes across the US, which was crazy.
12:16 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow, I mean. So tell us a little bit more. You know, what kind of shoes were these?
12:19 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, so like sandals, boat shoes kind of camp shoes. More of an outdoor, almost like a Bass Pro type feel and look.
12:27
So we were selling that type of product and we had a good run and talk about it a little bit in Relentless Sales. But we failed ultimately and made every mistake in the book. Two young guys and luckily we paid back most of our investment initially to our investors and did the best we could there. But we we learned a lot and transferred that into um becoming an associate with with Striker after five years.
12:58 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And so what? Uh, what division.
12:59 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
So um navigation. So, computer assisted surgery yeah.
13:04 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So so hold on. You know why? Why that is some. You meet someone you go into. You went to a doctor’s office, you had friends. What inspired you? You had your entrepreneurial experience, and then you said you know what, I’m going to switch gears. What led you in that direction?
13:21 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
It’s funny. Two things. One I knew a guy walking around in scrubs I thought he was a physician and he was with J&J and I had a conversation with him and then another mentor of mine named Jon Riley. He sat me down and he’s like dude, you need to get into medical device and you need to get into selling capital. And those were the two directives he gave me and he was very successful and I applied to a company called striker, went through that whole process and I remember your audience will probably appreciate this I remember um being on a field ride with one of the reps and not knowing where I stood and said I looked at him and I remember being kind of bold. After I was like I can’t believe. I said that to him. Uh, I said, hey, man, I’m gonna break in, whether it’s with you guys or not.
14:05 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I was like I hope it’s with you guys.
14:06 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I really want to work with you. I really want to learn from you. And then afterwards I can’t believe I just said that to him, but he told me later that’s why he pushed me along to his hiring manager to give me the nod.
14:17 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
He said he saw the commitment early on, so computer-assisted. So tell us about that and then tell us about why you transitioned out of that and what was your next type of business. Yeah, absolutely, Tell us about why you transitioned out of that and what was your next type of medical surgery.
14:30 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Absolutely Great company, awesome company, nothing but respect. There it’s a big picture, gps for the anatomy, so little trackers with sub-millimeter accuracy, and so we put these little trackers if it was a spine procedure on a vertebrae and then we brought in this big computer with wheels with a camera on it, and this boom looked down and it could tell the physicians where to place their pedicle screws or, for knees and hips, how to manipulate the cut, the distal femoral cut or what have you. So basically, it’s just GPS in its simplest form, gps for the anatomy, and it was a very good initial job for me as an associate. But what I found out quickly was I came in and had a really good rep that I worked under. He was 10 years, about 16 years, in the territory, but I was only about eight months in and they brought in another rep to backfill him. So I saw the writing on the wall. From that perspective I wanted to stay in.
15:28
Atlanta and I knew there wasn’t any more room for me in that particular division, and so a guy in my church came up to me. He’s like, dude, you need to check out this small company called EndoChoice. And the rest is history. I was rookie of the year there, rep of the year, and then had the best two years combined at EndoChoice and that allowed me to come over to Boston.
15:51 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow, that’s quite the experience. So I still want to know, as all this is happening, when did it even occur to you to start to write a book? Was it at EndoChoice? Was it just four years ago? When did you say I’m going to at least start writing some of these things down and I’m going to put this into a book eventually?
16:13 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, and in 2019 ranges where you know I’m I’m kind of a nerd. Just like you have books. I have a whole closet full of books right over here. It’s shut.
16:21 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yes, I am.
16:22 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, I wasn’t calling you a nerd. I was saying I’m a book nerd, um, but, but, but, but, but, man, I’m with you, man I’m. I tried to consume everything I can. When we failed our company, I committed to myself. I’m like I’m never going to fail again. So this thing of failure to me was like of course I’m going to pick up a $20 book to learn everything I can about sales and it’s just trickled.
16:44
And so I think that my dad, being an author, writing a book between those two things and getting my thoughts on paper was very therapeutic. And so, after a couple of years writing, a good friend of mine named Joe came along. I was like, dude, you need to tell yourself you’re writing a book. This is good stuff. He’s like yes, you have a third or fourth grade writing level, that’s okay. Most salespeople will appreciate that and encourage me to kind of get it done, and so it didn’t launch until the end of last year, 2023.
17:15 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow, this is very recent. What type of author is your father?
17:20 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
So my dad is a communicator. He is actually a Presbyterian minister of all things down in Orlando.
17:26 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Very cool.
17:27 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
And so he’s, I would say, a religious author. A wrote a father son book called like father, like son, which is cool. Yeah.
17:36 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay. So yeah, why? Why should everybody listening right now, whether they want to get into medical sales, whether they’re in medical sales or whether they’re leading the way, or even a or even a physician, why should they start to read your book and get into it?
17:51 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, I break down what I think are the three most important elements the skills, the mentality and faith that’s a subtitle book need to be great in sales, and so it’s relentless sales. If anything, if nothing else about the book, it’s that relentless mentality that you need to be successful in in whatever you choose to do with your, your, your career. So, um, I break down the last 15 years of um successes and failures I’ve had, from failing that, that, that small business venture, to becoming rep of the year president’s club leading teams to to victory. I think I give all the tips and tricks of that book and, um, you know chapter six. I talk about sales process. I talk about um learning how to run a territory like a professional.
18:38 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And.
18:38 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I’ve just consumed books, just like you have for the last 20 years, and I consolidate what I think makes makes the most sense.
18:44 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love it, so let’s dig in. So if you can go back to that experience the entrepreneurial one, you know what would you say your top three learnings from that experience were. 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.
19:33
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.
19:51 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, the one that jumps out to me right away is overlapping job responsibilities.
19:56
There were things that my brother, who is our CEO, a couple of years older than me, he and I would overlap where honestly I should, as a sales guy, I should have got in a van and started driving and not turned off my focus from sales. I was distracted from, you know, operations, work, CEO work, wasting my time with websites. There’s so many things that took my focus off what it needed to be, and um and so I would start with um, not overlapping your job responsibilities. Our job in sales is to sell. We should just sell. Being your job responsibilities, Our job in sales is to sell, we should just sell.
20:33 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So that’s one. Okay, I like that, that’s number one.
20:34 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, so that’s one. There were so many lessons that we learned. I’m trying to think that’s the one that jumped out initially to me. Let me see if I can give you a couple other ones here on the fly, I think fear. I talk about that in in my book, conquering fear, chapter nine. There were so many times where I was fearful, fearful and calling a buyer Um, there’s, there should have been. I should have done way more work with the big accounts. The 80, 20 rule is real in every industry and so I should have been working closer with Bass, pro, cabela’s, gander Mountain, you name. It were some of those big buyers that I was hesitant and, honestly, as a young guy out of college, I didn’t know what I was doing.
21:18 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So you would say the fear that you experienced was just the not knowing how to do it and the fear of looking silly or the fear of doing it wrong, or what was propagating that fear.
21:31 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I think all of the above, I think all the above there’s, you know, I think self-doubt too. You know when you’re, when you’re trying to do something. I think a lot of times in sales we are too hesitant, we’re too gun shy, if you will, and we need to be more aggressive. Worst comes to worst, you make a friend through that engagement if you approach it the right way. So don’t be afraid, as baseball players say, like let the bat off your shoulder swing, like you’re not going to hit a home run unless you swing. And so fear is crippling. And so that’s why I talk about faith in the book a little bit, because I found that as an element to really help with fear.
22:07 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, and the third one.
22:10 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I think the the the habits right. Owning your morning routine. I think habits can be a big yeah, having that consistent approach and creating the systems. There should have been more systems created that would help have helped us allow to have a more successful approach.
22:27 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, sure so. So you know, what’s so cool about your story, Jon, is that you you did not start in medical sales. You became a success in medical sales and now you’re leading other successful individuals in coaching success. Yeah, talk to us about and I always like to do things in terms of three. So talk to us about what are the three things that reps listen to this right now. If they want to be rock stars, if they want to be the top 10%, top 1% even, what do they absolutely have to be doing? Give us three things.
23:03 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, pre-call planning and really doing pre-call planning.
23:07 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Number one Okay, so define what people think it is and define what it is.
23:11 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
All right. So pre-call planning is taking anywhere from five to 30 minutes before you’re meeting the next day, making sure you’re prepped with the numbers for if you’re having a numbers discussion and economic numbers discussion, hopefully you’ve spent time preparing in advance that. But reviewing the numbers at least 30 minutes before the next day, knowing what, what cadence you want to have with that customer as you walk in there, kind of walk through that, what you think that cause it’s not going to go exactly how you think it’s going to go.
23:42 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Never does Right.
23:43 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Right so, but but at least plan and think through what you know about the account and have your stuff together. Look and think through what you know about the account and have your stuff together. Look at the website, figure out what’s important to them. Do you know? Have you looked up your customers on social media, you know? Do you know? You might find some invaluable information that will really help that either rapport building phase of that conversation go well or you might find some commonality that you didn’t know existed by not doing your research on social media. So look them up on Facebook, instagram, linkedin, et cetera.
24:14 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So pre-call plan.
24:17 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I do think that I talk about zoning geographically, zoning your territory and really being tight. I have like a template on my website to help reps with zoning their territory and I think that’s so critical, especially if you have a big geographical area that you cover, clumping your accounts in certain geographies. So if you know you have five accounts in the northeast corner of the state that you cover accounts, key contacts they’re rolling 12 sales versus prior understanding. All the account information outside of a CRM.
24:51 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So are you saying okay, so that sounds like two different things. Are you saying routing and knowing your customer, or are you speaking to something else completely?
24:59 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, so it’s not routing. What it is is a geographic clumping of your account with all the pertinent information you need. So I have an Excel. It’s a picture of an Excel document I can send you one after this, but picture you know you have five, you know all the accounts you can hit in one day.
25:17
basically um clump together and in a certain geography, so North, south, central, you name it. Break them out into where you can hit them all in one day and have the important information. Cause what I teach a lot of my reps is, as you’re calling on one zone, why not prep your next two weeks out in advance? If you know you’re going to be in the northeast corner of your account or in a different state, plan ahead and, as you’re driving, use that time wisely. And so I call it geographic zoning of your territory.
25:49 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, okay, so pre-call planning geographic zoning. What’s the third?
25:56 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Attack list. You’ve got to have a weekly attack list so when your feet hit the floor Monday morning, you have to act like an invader versus on the defense right, I like offense is always better than defense in my mind.
26:09
So you know, I don’t care if my team does their prep Friday and they’re they’re carving out that time before the end of the day on Friday or they’re doing it Sunday night, but before they hit the ground running on Monday, I want to make sure they’re tight and I want them to know what are their top five opportunities that week that they can drive new revenue from. Opportunities that week that they can drive new revenue from so um, teaching that discipline of consistently getting your attack list, and then they should really prioritize those best opportunity to last right If you can. It’s just like a snowball. If you can get one deal moving early in the week, that gives you confidence for the second third opportunities.
26:47 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love it, I love it Now in the same vein. Same vein, you know, there are things that not not necessarily negative things that people do, but just things that are pitfalls for sales reps, that they should be very mindful of. What three things would you say are just common pitfalls that reps fall into, that gets in the way of becoming that top performer, that top 10 or 1 fall into that gets in the way of becoming that top performer, that top 10 or 1%.
27:13 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, I talk about this too and I’m trying to think which chapter I talk about in my book. I’m having a blank, but basically reps that call just to vent about whatever that wastes your time throughout the day. Don’t get caught up in the gossip game with your fellow reps that just want to vent. I saw a pattern with one of the organizations I used to work for where, come 12 o’clock one o’clock reps would start calling each other and just venting and you look down at your phone and you’re like dude, you just wasted 45 minutes of my time just venting, adding no value. And so what I would do is, unless I knew a teammate was in a, an important case or something like I would screen calls until four o’clock.
27:51 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Wow, think about all of you did allow for venting, but only after four.
27:56 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, right, when the day, when the day is almost over, I’ll allow a little bit of venting right To collaborate. But think about it right, You’ve been there, Samuel, I mean think about all the, the, the time wasted from teammates that aren’t helping you drive what you need to do in your territory and they just want to vent. So be careful who you associate with you know, and be careful how you spend your time. Time’s so precious.
28:18 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And to add to that, you know for, for, for. For me it’s it’s got to stay solution oriented. I mean, if you’ve got to vent, you’re right. Don’t do it during the busiest time of the day, when you can actually be getting things done. Save it, but, more importantly, get that out and then go right to the solutions. How do we, how do we come up with a solution? Solution, solution, solution. So I think I get that all right? All right, here’s another one number two uh, social media.
28:46 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
while it’s a very good tool, man, it is so dangerous. You could waste a lot of time scrolling on social media, right? So use it kind of like a Navy SEAL Get in, get out, do what you need to and don’t get caught up in the wheel.
29:01 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Let’s stop there for just a moment. So you know I would say that COVID kind of kicked off this gosh I don’t even know how you call it, but kicked off this movement of how to use social media as a sales professional to do business, how to develop a brand, how to get in contact with customers you never could have before. How to do no matter what’s going on in the world, whether it be a pandemic or anything else, get access. How do you feel about the sales rep utilizing social media to do business?
29:40 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I think it’s a valuable tool. You just have to put it in its perspective place. I mean it doesn’t. It doesn’t beat picking up the phone and calling. It doesn’t beat having really well-scripted, thought-through emails. It’s a piece of the puzzle. I think you have to be wise with it. You can waste so much time getting sucked into the vortex that is social media. But an appropriate LinkedIn post, an appropriate you know, I’ve listened to some of your other podcast with some other social media experts and they’re great. I think they’re using it the right way just try not to get overly consumed with it.
30:17
Let it’s a piece of the puzzle.
30:19 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So venting mindless social media. What’s the third?
30:23 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
yeah um spending their time with either their best customer, because that best customer makes them comfortable.
30:33
Oh good, you know, and on that, and not, and not you know, and putting them in the appropriate place and going out and doing the appropriate hunting, prospecting, et cetera. I think a lot of times you know we’re emotional creatures, right, like you know it’s like eating good soul food, right, like you go into an account where they’re like Jon, what’s up, where you been, you know, and they give you hugs and you know you’re like you’re the man you’re walking in and or you’re, you know, your family, right, those counts that make you feel good. But are you creating, advancing and closing appropriate opportunities? And, as my friend Mike Weinberg would say, create, advance and close? And I think you have to just make sure you monitor. Our job is to be value creators, to drive revenue for our organizations, and so spend time with your best customers. Yes, the 80 20 rule is real. 80% of your revenue does come from the top 20, uh percent of your customers, but you can’t spend all your time there.
31:34 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
No, I love it, I love it. Uh, you know. Let’s go back to your book. Yeah, who is it best for? I mean, if you had to just pick an audience, you would say is it best for the beginner rep, the pre-rep, the mid-career rep, the tail end of the career rep? Who would you say that your book is designed best for?
32:04 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
loved your book, right? This stood out to me, but I would say if. I could give this book to myself 15 years ago, when I was just becoming a sales rep. This book kind of outlines the things that I wish I would have known 15 years ago. So there was an ideal prospect for this book. I would say it’s the early rep and then obviously I got a huge medical device tilt. So those medical device reps are are are my audience.
32:23 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Hey, come on, it is what it is.
32:24 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah.
32:25 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, fantastic. All right, I want to get into a little bit more about Jon. So, Jon, you know what are we doing here? We family man, or we making things happen with life?
32:34 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, let me, let me, let me show you after I, after I clear my my messages up but that’s, that’s life right there man. I have a seven year old, five year old and a brand new uh little girl. So girl boy, girl man you’re making things happen. Okay.
32:52 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, so, so what? What is your? Give us your personal routine, then you know you’re waking up, at what time you’re doing what to get into your day. I mean, you’re an author, so you’ve probably had good time to consider how you want to do your morning and night routines. Talk to us.
33:07 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, and I I actually again not selling a book here. I outlined it in the book perfectly on what I do. But but I think that 5am club is is where I’m most productive. It’s tough. I’ve gone in now with the new baby, have fallen off a little bit of the schedule, if I’m being completely honest, right.
33:23 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
You know, but?
33:24 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
but when I’m waking up at 5am I’m I’m on and you know I have my water, my coffee. I’m more of an espresso person now and you know what I’ve found is like getting on the Peloton for 30 minutes or getting in reading some good books I, you know, for me it’s a Bible, and also good business books those are. You know, the proverbs in the Bible is like, chock full of wisdom.
33:48
So like everything is salespeople. If you want, like a um, just a silver bullet for how to approach your day like read a proverb, a day like to me is gold man is gold.
34:00
It says things like don’t talk too much, right? That’s good advice. I need to be reminded of that today. Right, listen, right. And victory comes with abundance of counselors. So like there’s a lot of good stuff in there. But I, but I read a little bit of the Bible and then I read some good business books Jon Maxwell’s books, sales books, jeffrey Gittimer, mike Weinberg, you name it. There’s a lot of good people.
34:25
I get with them to do that. So either exercise before or exercise after kind of depends on how my body’s feeling. I’m getting up there now but get a little exercise in and then I’m out the door, usually by like 7, 45, 8.
34:40 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay, okay. And how about, when you take that all in? What happened? What’s the night routine?
34:46 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, kind of the shutdown routine is um, hopefully I’m, I’m back by the house by 5 PM, 5, 30, you know, depending on how busy that day is, depending on travel, um, you know, I have eight States that I cover, so I’m sometimes I’m getting in way later than that.
35:00
And um and so if I am home, say it’s a perfect day. I’m getting in way later than that. And so if I am home, say it’s a perfect day. I’m home by 5, 530. I’m trying to shelve the phone for a couple hours, trying to spend time with the family and then, you know, get back after it after I get them down to bed Got it, got it.
35:17 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So get back after you get down to bed, meaning you get back to work after you get in bed. Yeah, you know, you’re checking what time is that, yeah.
35:23 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
so I mean my kids go to bed by eight every night they’re still on the younger side. So once I get them down, I’m looking at my phone, I’m looking at my emails and then back to that pre-call plan that we talked about. You know, looking at my schedule for the next day, what do I need to do to get ahead of those early meetings in the morning and really stay sharp for the next day?
35:45 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Fantastic. You know earlier you said one of the reasons what the best audience for your book is. Who you were, you know, 15 years ago and you literally wrote a whole book. But I’m going to ask you the question anyway. All right, let’s say you did go back to the beginning of being a rep. You know what? What would you tell yourself?
36:10 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Number one is going to be okay. Calm down a little bit. You know, I think I think some of us, like I, run hot, and so you know, I think that those unnecessary nights of worrying don’t they don’t do you any good. So I think I would tell myself keep preparing. Our one word for our team this year is excellence. Try to shoot for excellence in all we do, and that should be my goal. Aim for excellence. Try to be sharp and excellent in all you do and success will come. But don’t stress about the unimportant I like it.
36:45 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I like it. You know you’re a leader of many now and I’m sure there was a transitional period where you went from individual contributor to a leader and you had to kind of adjust your perspective. For those listening that have the same sort of ambition, what would you share with them?
37:05 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, again, there’s different leaders, like Mike Weinberg, who’s talks about this not being the super rep. It is so important, so many. I think I’m fortunate during my time in medical device to have really good managers, and I had one that was really bad and I learned more from the bad manager than I did from the good, and I promised myself when I became a manager I would never act the way that the bad manager acted.
37:33
And so I look at that as a blessing to have a bad manager to where I didn’t want to do that. So when I came in, I knew I was mature enough to know I need to win through my people and that’s how we win. So when you give everything to your people and pour everything into them and you make them the heroes, not yourself you’re golden, Don’t?
37:55 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
be the hero. Give us a little bit more, though. What does that mean? Show us what that means.
38:00 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Show us what that means.
38:01
Yeah. So, for instance, I had a manager who took credit behind closed doors for a lot of stuff that me and another rep would do, and we knew because other people told us that were in that room told us that he was taking credit for our work. So that is the worst thing you can do as a leader is to point back to yourself. So, for me, any and every chance I try to catch my team in the act of doing something good, and and so we are just like sales reps should make their customers the heroes, or certain stakeholders within that account the heroes we should make. Like my customers are my, my sales reps now, and so my job is really, I think, leadership’s redefined now. It’s different than how it used to be, and we’ve got to make our people the heroes. So I do, I go out of my way to try to point out where they’re doing good things to my director, sure.
38:58 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
What’s the hardest part about being a sales, a medical sales rep, a sales rep or sales manager? Well, let’s start with sales rep, then we’re going to go to sales manager too. All right, cool, cool sales rep.
39:12 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Um, I think one of the hardest things is is probably understanding where to spend your time. If I were to say, you know, there’s so much thrown at, there’s that fear of not hitting your number. That’s what we talk about like identity kind of. When we check our identity, it helps us sell more freely and so I think the pressure of having a number and not for those early in their career not having the experience of knowing where to go to win.
39:43
I think that’s the hardest thing and that’s why I teach the attack list. And that’s why I teach this zone territory is because I think those two things help. But yeah, that’s where they get lost, gotcha.
39:53 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And then for a sales manager.
39:56 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
The hardest thing for a sales manager, I would say, is hiring and recruiting and developing. I think, again going back to that bad manager mindset, a lot of managers like to hire people who aren’t as good as them because they feeds an ego of being able to tell them what to do. Wow, that’s deep.
40:20 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Okay.
40:20 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
But I think what I’ve really tried to do is hire people who are way better than me. And you look at my team and I have people that are like who’s deep, okay, but I think what what I’ve really tried to do is hire people who are way better than me. And you look at my team and I have people that are like who’s the boss here? Like cause my team is stacked and um, and so that’s something I’m very, very proud of is I want people who are smarter, better, stronger and and and every category than me. Um, and that’s just something I’ve learned over time is like man, hire as good as you can because it’ll help you as a manager.
40:47 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, Fantastic. Well, there’s one more thing I want to address. And and do your best, All right. No, being a medical sales rep, you’re by yourself a lot, you know. A lot of times you’re strictly solo and you’re out in the territory and, like you said earlier, trying to figure out where you’re supposed to be. Would you agree that there are times when you just get in your own head and you kind of I don’t know, for lack of a better way of saying it come up with these self-defeating thoughts that prevent you from being at your best as you’re seeing customers?
41:25 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Absolutely.
41:27 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
How do you, you know, for those reps listening what are some things that maybe you’ve done or you’ve seen your reps do that has done a great job of thwarting those thoughts or just confronting them and removing them. You know, getting around that.
41:44 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
So chapter one of my book is mentors. And who starts a sales book out with mentors, right, this guy, you know. And so it’s because I learned like there’s a reason, like people ahead of us can help us prevent self-defeating actions and thoughts and stuff like that. So if you don’t have a big network, get fine, start finding, find one person who’s ahead of you in your career and reach out to them and start learning from people who are two, three stages ahead of you. I’m telling you that’s one of the biggest um. I saw some video on on social media of this guy uh, this little kid trying to learn how to surf.
42:23
Yeah, this guy came up right next to him on his knees and helped the little kid. He stood him up on the surfboard and the instructor was on his knees and just held the little guy and he just skid down the wave Right. And that’s what mentors are to us is they are like that guy helping us learn to surf, coming right next to us, lifting us up on the surfboard and propelling us faster. So that’s one of a few things I would recommend.
42:49 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
What’s another?
42:51 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Well, I think chapter two. I talk about identity, right Understanding who we are Like. A lot of times those self-defeating thoughts come from poor identity and lack of confidence.
43:03
And so start building our self-talk, start checking your self-talk. I think there’s a lot of reps who are really really good but have negative thinking and speak negatively to themselves. So, as crazy as that may sound, work on affirmations that are positive right, so you can start the day off on a right foot and you catch yourself when you’re when you’re saying something negative. I’m I’m as hard as they get on myself yeah. And sounds like you. You can certainly relate and you are too saying well, you’d be our biggest critic, can’t we?
43:35 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Those are the facts. You know, you. You, you’ve mentioned identity a couple of times. Give us a little bit more. When you say identity, what are you talking about exactly?
43:46 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, good question and that can mean some different things to different people. But there was a time when I went from striker two and a half years as an associate. So I went from field venture right called five years of starting entrepreneurial venture to two and a half years as an associate for striker, which if you know much about striker, that’s, that’s not an easy gig, right. There’s. There’s days where you’re called and you’re like hey, I need you in Miami the next day at 7am and I’m in Atlanta.
44:11
And you know you’re like all right, I got to figure that out. So striker um and then failed venture striker and then and then I got to a spot, when I became a full line territory manager with Indochoice, that I was just going crazy, going all out, and my dad came alongside me and said hey, man, like, be excellent, go for excellence, but like, remember, your identity is not an achieving rookie of the year or rep of the year, like you’re an Owenson, you’re God’s kid. So live from your identity, not for your identity. And for me, that was the the phrase that changed my life. It’s like, man, I don’t have to. What people will find is like, if you’re going for rep of the year right now, you’re going to find that, like when you get rep of the year, it’s empty, right, like it’s cool for a little while and you should still go for it. So don’t, don’t let up, still go for it but you are who you are, so live.
45:07
Live from your identity, not for your identity, and that’s kind of what I would encourage your listeners. It’s like man you’re. You’re way more than just a number on a page, and what that does is it frees you up to sell authentically to your customers.
45:21 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I love it. You know you wrote this book and and it’s selling. What’s your? What’s your biggest? Uh, I don’t want to say hope, but just like, how, about best case scenario? What’s the biggest that can happen with this book?
45:35 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Man, I don’t know. I mean right now. We self-published it, you know so through Amazon. So it was just kind of through the bootstraps work and so we put together a really good product. We’re getting a lot of good feedback and I just hope it keeps touching the right audience, and I know your listeners are at all stages. I hope those ones that are early in their career will definitely pick it up. I know it’ll catapult their career, but for me it hasn’t been. It’s not like a money-making thing, because it’s not really what books are Once. It hasn’t been. It’s not like a money making thing because it’s not really what books are Once you get into them you realize that, unless you’re James Clear, not in 2024.
46:08 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
It’s not a money making thing in 2024.
46:09 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, not anymore. Yeah, maybe 20 years ago.
46:12 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, maybe 20 years ago, right yeah.
46:14 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
It’s more of a legacy thing and it’s more of impacting.
46:24 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
When I get those messages on LinkedIn, it’s like, hey, man, your book was awesome, thank you. It kind of feels like a significant bucket for me. That is fantastic, Jon. It has been real. Thank you for the time. Today. We got one more thing to do. Are you ready? I’m ready, man, bring it. This is called our lightning round. I’m going to ask you four questions. You have less than 10 seconds to answer each one. All right, all right, all right. First question what’s the best book you have read in the last six months?
46:46 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Andy Frisilla’s book on mental toughness.
46:49 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Oh, I’m going to have to take a look at that one, yeah.
46:51 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Mental toughness.
46:53 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So it’s just a book on what Like habits to build resilience, or something else entirely.
46:57 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
Yeah, habits to build resilience. It’s good stuff.
47:01 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
It’s wrote in a real simple form and there’s some case study stuff in there and there’s some good stuff oh, very good, that will be in the show notes, folks, and then best movie or tv show you’ve seen in the last six months so best movie or tv show.
47:16 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
It’s tough because with kids like I’m, I’m thinking all disney movies I got like elsa and anna and all this random stuff right for adults these days.
47:24 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
I got kids too, man, I know how it goes yeah.
47:27 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
My coolness has dropped off significantly. So TV shows I really like those shows called Alone. Have you seen Alone with the History?
47:35 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Channel, yeah, with the guys in the wilderness, right, yeah, they get 10 items.
47:39 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
I just like that. For whatever reason, I don’t know why.
47:42 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
That’s cool. Yeah, okay, we want the item, the location and the restaurant Best meal you’ve had in the last six months.
47:52 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
South City Kitchen.
47:53 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Atlanta Georgia.
47:55 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
It’s like white tablecloth, like Southern food.
47:59 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
So good yeah, give us a meal, man. Come on now.
48:02 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
They have fried chicken chicken there, it’s amazing or their steak okay, yeah, that will be in the show notes, folks.
48:08 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
And then, last but not least, what’s the best experience you’ve had in the last six months?
48:12 – Jon Alwinson (Guest)
uh, I mean I gotta give it up my little girl reese marie allenson. I mean how could I not right so little little baby girl? She’s almost four weeks today, yeah man. So we’re, we’re three and done at the Allenson family, that’s awesome man?
48:29 – Samuel Adeyinka (Host)
Yeah, it was. It was fantastic having you on the show. We can’t wait to see where this book goes. We know it’s going to be successful. Everybody listening is definitely going to get a copy. And thanks again for being on the show, Samuel, thank you Really enjoyed it. And that was Jon Alwinson Fantastic stuff.
48:45
You know I always when someone sits down to write a book in 2024 about how to do something, it’s inspiring because, as we discussed, it’s not easy to make a buck writing a book. So they’re not doing it because of the monetary value. They’re doing it because they literally have a message to share and they’re trying to find a way to share it. And whatever wisdom, mentoring, guidance or books they’ve read that have allowed them to conduct the success they’ve conducted. They now want to pay it forward and, of course, coming from me, that is a wonderful thing and I couldn’t do anything but want to support something like that. So please, if you’ve heard this episode, if you resonated with anything you heard, if you just want to know how to be better in your career in medical sales, make sure you get a copy of Jon book. The link is in the show notes. Get a copy, let’s go. You’re going to learn something. Jon will be back and he’ll be working with us at Evolve your Success, so stay tuned. I’m not going to give you any details, but something exciting is coming in the future.
49:49
And for those of you that are listening to this and you’re thinking, wow, one day I want to have a medical sales career, perform, be a leader and write my own book or you heard about endoscopy or ortho or neuromodulation or any other of the industries he’s been in then you need to visit EvolveSuccesscom. Schedule some time with us, talk to one of our enrollment specialists and let’s get you into a position that will change your entire life. Whether you’re a professional that has never been in medical sales, whether you’re in medical sales and you’ve been displaced and you’re looking for where do I go next, we can help you at EvolveYouroursuccesscom. As always, we do our best to bring you guests that are doing things different in the medical sales space, so make sure you tune in next week for another episode of the Medical Sales Podcast.
50:33
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.