Are you selling?

The Florida International Medical Expo, or FIME, was celebrated from august 2nd to Thursday the 4th at the Miami Convention Center, and I have to say, it was an eye opening experience. Having been in medical sales for 4 years now and having attended medical congresses and courses, the FIME was so different to the other events I had gone to. There is a main reason for this and that is that here the focus was not medical conferences or the learning, or the CME points, nope, it was just the creation of new commercial relationships between distributors and providers, between doctors and new equipment, and hospital administrative staff and new suppliers. It was a big orgy for the medical devices industry in which deals were made, others rejected and, in the end, a huge load of money moved around this week in which Miami Beach burst into the tourism that typically drives its local economy.

Safe to say that this event offers a display of the best names in medical equipment, and sales reps and managers, or, does it? Having been assigned a lousy place because of remodeling, we were placed somewhere that only by chance you had people going by us, poor location, poor visibility, and poor neighbors. I have to say I was a little disappointed, expecting to see people so skilled at selling that deals would be struck in a frequent manner, but no, apparently as a business, after you've made your ~$5,000 dollar investment in setting up a booth, spent around ~$1,500 in flights, another $1,000 in hotel and who knows how much in on the road expenses, you do not even sit down to analyze who the hell is representing your company, or presenting your product offerings.

One of the advantages of having this awful location was that to the right I had a Korean company, and to the right a Chinese one, which helped me to set theory and law on the point I am trying to make. Let's break it down:

The South Korean company thought ahead, not only they brought in a woman (which is always a plus, what?, sue me) but this lady could speak Korean, English and a heck of a good Spanish. Here I have to say that this expo is happening in Miami, international focus, so you need to get people who know at least English and Spanish, for the latinos that will show up will be quite a few, and so it happened. At the same time they brought in this dude from Latin American sales from one of their distributors, who understand this market, and he was there aiding in establishing new relationships. All in all, the neighbors from the right not only knew their product, had multi language skills and cross cultural understanding and resources, but also knew the market they were targeting, their competition and their advantages against them. They were kicking ass with each customer they received.

Now with the Chinese. These fellas brought in one of the company owners who had the communication skills of a 1756 telephone (analyze that!), one of the managers and a "sales" employee. The last 2, women, spoke English and Chinese and were the ones doing all the contact and the selling. Needless to say we had to aid them when Spanish-speaking-only customers walked by, which, to me, would automatically knock out points for interest, for communication is crucial in business relationships. What struck me the most was the lack of coordination between them as a "team", from not even sharing price strategies and giving out crazy numbers when asked for prices, as with the lousy misinformed manager, who didn't even clearly understand the financials behind their operation, which prompted the not being able to understand how to negotiate with potential customers, and me, listening to the so common: "too expensive". It was so funny, for at one moment a customer from Brazil walks by and asks for price, and the manager said: "it is very expensive, $200 dollars". I do not have to say that these "sellers" had no understanding of the market, competitor prices or strategies, and even asked me at some point to call the competitors offices in China, to ask for price for a competing product. This is not wrong, but the timing? well, it was the last day of the expo.

So I don't know, call me picky, but walking around the fair I would have liked to feel approached to, talked to, overwhelmed with offers, call my attention, offer me stuff; goddammit, sell me something!

I can't complain, the lousier the competition, the easier I get it to promote what I've got to offer. I think it is basic things like dominating your product specs, understanding the market, elaborating a simple sales pitch with your key selling points and dismantling the competitors' strategies that will provide a nice ground to be effective at selling, all of this combined with the appropriate communication skills will allow you to maximize your investment in this kind of event a next time.

I am just looking forward to the next expo, to see what kind of surprises I will get.