The Skill No One Taught You: How Elite Physicians Actually Read Clinical Data
You think your data is impressive but is it actually landing or turning physicians off?
Lisa and Cindy sit down with Dr. Bill Dixon and Dr. Brian Brown, interventional cardiologists, to unpack what really happens when reps present clinical studies. From the mistakes that instantly kill credibility to the subtle strategies that build trust, this episode pulls back the curtain on how physicians think, filter, and decide.
If you’re leading with data, skipping the relationship, or pushing too hard you’re missing the mark. This is your playbook for becoming a clinically sharp, trusted partner in the room, not just another rep with a stack of papers.
Episode Chapter Markers
02:02 Listener Question Setup
02:53 Rep Story Piquing Interest
05:36 Awkward Article Pitching
06:52 Trial Quality and Bias
09:00 Pharma vs Device Endpoints
10:43 Where to Find Summaries
13:41 HFpEF Topcat Example
14:48 P Values and Risk Reduction
16:43 Next Burning Questions
16:53 What Changes Practice
17:38 Learning From Peers
19:00 Litmus Tests And Trials
20:04 Numbers Needed To Treat
20:59 Rep Questions To Avoid
21:39 Don’t Lead With Data
22:27 Build Trust First
24:10 Do Your Homework
25:49 Reps As Clinical Partners
26:54 Plan For Complications
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Why Most Reps Lose Physicians Immediately – Leading with data instead of connection shuts down interest before the conversation even starts.
The Right Way to Introduce Clinical Data – Curiosity beats pushing. The best reps spark interest instead of forcing information.
Understanding Trial Quality Matters – Not all studies are created equal knowing gold standard trials separates amateurs from pros.
Relative vs Absolute Risk (And Why It Matters) – Physicians look beyond flashy percentages to real clinical impact.
The “Number Needed to Treat” Game-Changer – One metric that can instantly elevate your credibility in conversations.
How Physicians Actually Change Their Practice – It’s not just data it’s experience, trust, and seeing peers use it.
The Worst Questions You Can Ask a Doctor – Certain phrases instantly damage your authority and relationship.
Clinical > Sales Mindset – The reps who win are the ones who show up as clinical partners, not quota-driven sellers.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
“Don’t lead with data.” - Brian Brown
“A trial is not a trial is not a trial.” - Brian Brown
“We want to know absolute risk, not just flashy percentages.” - Brian Brown
“Ask yourself, does this make my life better or worse?” - Brian Brown
“Why wouldn’t you use this? That’s a question you should never ask.” - Brian Brown
“Most of the time, what you think we care about we don’t.” - Bill Dixon
“There is no perfect way to do anything in this world, but there are certainly some wrong ways to go about it..” - Bill Dixon
“Don’t act like your data is gospel, be ready for it to be challenged.” - Bill Dixon
“If you want us to change, take baby steps.” - Bill Dixon
“If you drop a stack of papers on my desk, it’s going straight in the trash.” - Bill Dixon
“At the end of the day, there’s a patient on the table. That's what this is all about.” - Cynthia Ficara
“Is it better to lead with data or support it?” - Cynthia Ficara
“You have to bring value every single time you walk into that room.” - Cynthia Ficara
“Understanding bias in studies isn’t optional, it's essential.” - Cynthia Ficara
“The reps who stand out are the ones who truly understand what the physician needs.” - Cynthia Ficara
“You have to be more clinically savvy than you are a salesperson.” - Anneliese Rhodes
“What actually makes a physician stop and think maybe I should change my practice?” - Anneliese Rhodes
“We’ve been doing this a long time but hearing it from physicians is different.” - Anneliese Rhodes
“That’s the question every rep wants answered: what moves the needle?” - Anneliese Rhodes
“Do your homework not just on the data, but on the doctor in front of you.” - Anneliese Rhodes
Follow Blue Collar I.C.'s:
Follow The Girls of Grit:
We'd Love to Hear Your Stories!
Ever walked into a physician’s office ready to present your data… and felt the conversation fall flat? Maybe you led with the study. Maybe you went straight to the numbers. Maybe you thought the data would speak for itself but it didn’t. We want to hear your story. DM us or tag us and share a time your data didn’t land and what you did next. Did you adjust your approach, build the relationship first, or learn the hard way? Your experience might be exactly what another woman in sales needs to step into the room with more grit and confidence.
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anneliese Rhodes: Welcome everyone to another episode of Secrets and Medical Device Sales, brought to you by the Girls of Grit. And today, you guys, we have an amazing Spotlight series times two. We have two. Yay. We have two doctors today, y'all. And they are here and they are answering. A lot of burning questions for us, but this one in particular, because it was written in not that long ago, we've got Dr.
Bill Dixon from Tallahassee, Florida, and he practices at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital with Southern Medical Group, as well as we have Dr. Brian Brown from Spartanburg, South Carolina. He works at the hospital there at Spartanburg Regional and they are both interventional cardiologists and they are answering this amazing, great question today, Cindy.
I can't wait to discuss it with them.
Cynthia Ficara: Oh, I know. Me too Well, welcome guys. We are so, so happy to have you here. And, little side note. Thank you. They have their own podcast. Yes. Blue collar ics. Everybody's gotta tune in blue collar ics. Yes. And here from two physicians in the podcast world talking everything I see.
Anneliese Rhodes: Yes. So without further ado, here they are. Gentlemen, y'all just take the lead, maybe say a couple words to our. Listeners, and then we'll dive right in today with our episode.
Bill Dixon: Yeah. So I've been watching, the Girls of Grit for a while, and, I've just been waiting for my opportunity to come on there.
Brian Brown: And finally, so today's the day. Been waiting for years, to be on here. So, really happy. I think it'll be fun, Brian.
Bill Dixon: First time guest, long time listener as well.
Brian Brown: There we go.
Bill Dixon: Well said.
Cynthia Ficara: Yeah,
Bill Dixon: bill is probably the reason that we're here would be my guess. I know it didn't come through me, but I'm excited about it.
You know, the call we had, I think we'll have a lot of fun stuff to talk about.
Cynthia Ficara: Well, that's great. Yeah.
What Actually Gets a Doctor to Listen
Welcome. You guys we're so, so happy to have you here. So what are we talking about today? We had a listener write into us and specifically ask us, they spend many of their day in front of physicians, and their question was simply, how do I read a clinical article to present to a physician?
Anneliese Rhodes: Yep. And I know that opens a lot of doors. And the thing is, you guys, we are so happy that you're here. We tend to answer these questions ourselves because we've been doing this for so long. But I think coming straight from the mouths of two physicians, you guys are in for a treat because you're gonna hear what they wanna hear, what they don't wanna hear, what's important to them, what's not important to them, and above all, how you come across when you present to them.
So. Y'all take it away. Dr. Dixon, Dr. Brown, whoever wants to jump in first and we'll go from there.
Brian Brown: Today was the first time in a long time that a rep, met with me and I actually asked that person, yeah, I'd like to see the paper send that to me. The majority of the times they're telling me about a paper, and I may or may not be interested, so I didn't know this.
Bill Dixon: There's a brand new anti-hypertensive that's coming to market. It's been a long time since it has been a brand new anti-hypertensive. And so to me I said, yeah, that's interesting, but it didn't start out so smoothly. I had seen my ma come by and I heard her speaking about where I was sitting, and I was on the phone and then I was doing some work and probably 20 minutes went by and it came out in the hallway and boom, that guy was there waiting for me.
I was like, have you been standing here this whole time since my ma came back here? And, and then he told me about it and I was actually interested to hear what it said. That is rare. So the reason I bring that up is most times when you think you have something a physician wants to hear about, they generally don't care or aren't interested.
Cynthia Ficara: So he peaked your interest.
Bill Dixon: Yes.
Brian Brown: It wasn't an aldosterone antagonist, was it?
Bill Dixon: Well, it wasn't spironolactone 'cause that's been on the market for a while, but I believe it's related.
Brian Brown: Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. I actually, saw that last week. So. So
Bill Dixon: Bill's always a step ahead of me. By the way, he's getting the news before I'm getting it,
Cynthia Ficara: so I'm glad that he's close to the
Brian Brown: Tallahassee.
Cynthia Ficara: I'm glad he came in today. That's good timing. when he mentioned it to you, did he just ask you, can I send you the article or did he tell you anything about it? Did he say there's data? How did that come about?
Bill Dixon: Well, this is why I brought it up. He didn't say anything about that. He just said, I'm this person.
I'm from this company. I heard that you take care of this thing and there's a new drug coming out. He did not then present me with data or try to shove it down my throat. He just told me merely that, and I said, wow. I'm surprised I haven't heard of that. Yeah, I actually would be interested in learning as opposed to.
Say in the TAVR world, there's super annular valves, there's valves that are inside, and everybody wants to tell you why one is better than the other. And you almost have the same author that's on both sides of the valve and they're just kind of treating you like you might be an idiot if you're not using their valve.
Cynthia Ficara: Mm-hmm.
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah. So we didn't try and push the paper on you, which is interesting. Yes. But so how, I mean, obviously if it's something you've not heard of that will pique your interest in and of itself. So how did the conversation go? I mean, how, what did he think?
Bill Dixon: Sometimes there's plenty of things Bill and I haven't heard of that.
When we hear about him, it is not necessarily interesting.
Anneliese Rhodes: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough.
Bill Dixon: Yes. Yes. So, we talked about this on the phone before, so how do you approach a physician and tell 'em about something? There is no perfect way to do anything in this world, but there are certainly some wrong ways to go about it. So, bill, what's an experience you've had where someone's talking to you and they're trying to tell you about this paper and you didn't appreciate or enjoy the interaction?
Brian Brown: it's a, it's a tricky situation 'cause the rep can say, Hey, Dr. Brown, have you read this article in the New England Journal? So if you say yes, then they expect you to know something about it. And if you say no, then you feel like you're not keeping up with the literature. another strategy would be, can I get your thoughts on this recent article?
if they ask, Hey, have you heard the latest are you familiar with this article that just came out? And if you say no, then you feel like a schmuck is a doctor. 'cause I'm not keeping up with the literature.
it can be tricky 'cause you, can ask the doc, Hey, what are your thoughts about X, y, Z trial? And they may not have read it yet. so they may be honest to say, well, I haven't read it yet. you can say, now if you come up to 'em and say, Hey, have you read this article?
And they say no. As a doc, you kind of feel like, well, I guess I'm a schmuck and I should be reading more. Yeah. But there are very few landmark articles that change practice. Yes. company's gonna give you every single little thing. And the ones that drive me the most crazy, I know this, this is a little more med device, but the anticoagulant ones, they drive me crazy because.
When we're looking at trials, the gold standard of a medical trial is a double-blind, randomized clinical trial. All right? So all of these observational trials, these prospective retrospective, they're much less robust in terms of, strength of influence and information. So that's part of it. We're gonna want to know, well, what kind of trial was it?
was it just an observational trial? And I would always tell the anticoagulant people, well, what'd the head-to-head trial show? And they've never done one, keep in mind what the gold standard is. All the other stuff is, a lot of it's fluff. Now, if there is a publication in a major journal.
every study has bias, right? The people that already felt that way before it was published say, ah, that's what I thought. And the people that don't agree with it will say, well, it's not a good study. But I always enjoyed reading. There's frequently an editorial about it, especially the big ones, like in New England Journal.
So you'll get a little more objective, idea and that can actually save you some time. Don't try and read an article and read all the methods. I don't understand all the statistics, but, a trial is not a trial is not a trial. There are major trials and major journals that are randomized studies.
Everything else is kind of fluff. What do you think, Brian?
Bill Dixon: Well, currently I'm looking at my daughter with a surprise look on her face because I heard my printer activate to my left. She would like to obtain whatever it is on that printer. So why don't you go ahead a
Brian Brown: study. Probably the study from your office today.
Bill Dixon: I think she's bringing out some PubMed, lit searches she's doing in fifth grade.
Cynthia Ficara: Are they randomized? Double blind?
Bill Dixon: Yeah. we're about to find out. It looks like a full size, color photo is what we've got coming out here. A rose, why don't you show us what you just printed out.
Cynthia Ficara: I love this. This is great.
Bill Dixon: She's not gonna show us. We'll have to move on. So. With pharma trials, it's different than device trials. And then with device trials, then there's these smaller things that come out that try to pit one device against another. And like Bill said, they're never really head to head anyway. So with pharma trials, right, with say heart failure, we're looking at mortality.
The secondary endpoint would be like heart failure hospitalizations. So know your trial, the trial you're trying to speak to a physician about. If you say. You know, it reduced mortality, but it's a cumulative endpoint and it didn't actually reduce mortality, it reduced heart failure hospitalizations. But because they combine the endpoints, then it quote unquote reduced mortality.
Just understand that because someone's gonna pick that apart. And it doesn't mean it's a bad drug or a bad therapy, it's just you're trying to go tell someone something they need to do for you, even though ultimately it's always about the patient, but you're asking them to change, their standard of care, whatever it is they do.
We were all trained at one point in time in medicine, and new things happen every single day. And just understand we are gonna have a large bias to what we were trained to do by the people that trained us. And yes, we understand things change, but it takes a lot to kind of move the needle, especially now where every drug is wildly outrageously price.
So the first thing I asked that hypertension guy was, well, what's this like $10,000 a month? You know, what's this gonna take? All these trials, at least in the cardiac space, that have to do with these medicines, say, all right, this is a new pillar of heart failure, but people can't afford it. We gotta figure it out.
Mm-hmm. With devices, like I said, it's more nuanced and sure, I wanna understand a little bit more, but don't act like whatever you were given by your company as gospel, be willing for that person to come at you a little bit and just accept it. Don't fight the doctor on it. You're not gonna win.
You're definitely not gonna get someone to use your product if it's adversarial.
The Truth Behind Clinical Trials
Cynthia Ficara: That is very well said. in each study, the very front page, you know, it'll say who sponsored the study? And I think it's really important that all the listeners know that when it's a company sponsored study, there's a bias.
That's just that being said for everybody, even companies I've worked for. That's there. And I think it's really important that we point that out. So in your, when you talked before about like New England Journal of Medicine or different things, what could some of our listeners Say they're not even pushing one of their specific drugs.
Okay. Or devices and they're in the cardiology space. You mentioned gold standard earlier. Dr. Dixon, would you recommend if these reps wanna learn more. Do they go to the gold standard? What should they read? What are they looking for when they're reading a clinical article? That's important to stand out for them to know what's fact and what's bias.
Brian Brown: Usually if it's a major trial, and most of the articles aren't major trials, and I'm biased too, there's so many journals now.
Cynthia Ficara: Mm-hmm.
Brian Brown: There are so many journals and everybody wants to get a publication, especially people in training. the stuff they're publishing is, I don't, pretty weak. I mean, there, it's like anything's getting published 'cause there's so many journals, they gotta have something to put in there.
what was your question again? Sorry. I was,
Bill Dixon: well, hang on.
Brian Brown: I made myself irritated.
Bill Dixon: So you said, you know, everyone needs to know that it's a company sponsored trial and that is important, but they need to conversely know that if the company doesn't sponsor it, it's not gonna happen. There are only so many NAH trials that gonna be run.
So we very true need company ran trials. You just need to be to know how to look at it. And one of those ways would be. Look for journal club resources online. Journal club resources will read through and really get to, like a cliff notes of the limitations of the trial up to date.
Cynthia Ficara: I, I don't even knew about that.
I literally just wrote that down.
Bill Dixon: Oh no. Literally there's journal clubs on almost every paper, and so you can read, you'll figure out what the limitations are to the study and it's important for you to know those.
Cynthia Ficara: Yeah.
Brian Brown: What I was gonna say was a lot of what I quote good trials, there's a lot of buzz about it.
So at meetings, a lot of times it's presented at meeting late, breaking trials and it's published at the same time. So there's buzz about it for,you guys line of work, endovascular Today, they won't have the article, but they'll have the response to the article and that's actually pretty helpful.
Because, some pretty smart people have taken a lot of time and gone through the weeds of the study. so there's usually buzz and then journal clubs where other physicians are discussing it. you'll see it on LinkedIn, you'll see it on Twitter, as trials come up and you'll, it's great because you see people for the trial against the trial.
those are some decent resources. I don't, you know, I don't know what else besides endovascular today, but. You know, the heart.org is another one, T-C-T-M-D. There's a bunch of places where, the newest research is coming out
Bill Dixon: Here's a good example of knowing a little bit of the nitty gritty about a pharmaceutical trial.
So in HFpEF, heart failure preserved ejection fraction. All the classic medications with systolic heart failure didn't work out. So we didn't really have a good therapy for these individuals. We knew we needed to use diuretics. And eventually a trial came out for Spironolactone, which was a potassium-sparing diuretic.
And this, was in a journal club when I was, in training and I think it was called Top Cat. And the US data was negative, and the entire trial was pushed positive by all the data coming out of Georgia. The country.
Brian Brown: The country.
Cynthia Ficara: Oh,
Bill Dixon: not the state. it's just something interesting to know, just like I talked about with composite outcomes, and so that doesn't mean I don't believe in spironolactone or that I don't use it.
It's just interesting to know how did it work out in a device trial? How many people were enrolled by one physician? If it enrolled 120 people and 118 were by one person and two were by another or some other example, it makes a difference.
Cynthia Ficara: Well, that's a great point. That is a great point. And while we're on that, when you are looking at data, the statistical significance, can you tell me how that, is important to you?
What I was always taught is that if it's less than zero, 0.5, that is statistically significant based on the sample size. So, but can you tell me what you think about that? And is that still a guideline today?
Brian Brown: So that's been adopted by the scientific community decades ago. So basically that says there's less than a 5% chance that whatever you found occurred by chance.
So that's the standard of the community. So. you'll see p less than 0, 0 0 1. they'll say it's highly statistical, significant. If it's 0.06, that's almost 0.05. They won't say it's statistically significant, but they'll say there's a clinically significant trend. So it almost was statistically significant.
So that's, all that means. Another important thing is absolute risk reduction versus relative risk reduction.
Cynthia Ficara: Mm-hmm.
Brian Brown:The company is always focused on relative 'cause. It's a larger number, and I'll give you an example. You have, drug A, the event rate is 2% and drug B, the event rate is 1%.
That's a 50% relative risk reduction. Right. But it's an absolute risk reduction of only 1%. that's extreme. Did I do the math right, Brian? you did? Yeah. So that's, an example. So we like to know absolute risk reduction. 'cause that also tells us the number needed to treat. So whatever the absolute risk reduction is, if it's 10, you divide a hundred by the absolute risk reduction and that gives you the number needed to treat.
Mm-hmm. So. The absolute risk reduction is 10. You gotta treat 10 people to prevent one event or whatever your endpoint is. So that's really easy to learn and docs will ask you that.
How Doctors Decide to Switch
Anneliese Rhodes: Yes. All right. I have two burning questions. Number one, one of you said, not necessarily is this paper going to change the way I do things, my practice, et cetera.
When do you decide that it might be something that either, whether it's a device or a drug, mainly more devices. but in general, let's just say. You're using one stent and then you see this paper or the rep brings it to you and then all of a sudden you think, Hmm, maybe there's something to this. What is it like?
Is it physicians that are using it? Is the amount of product being implanted? Is it the data? Is it all of it? what really starts to change your mind in terms of, you know what, maybe I do need to look at using this device more. Or maybe I do need to look at this drug a little bit more intently.
Is there some smoking gun even that either one of you might say to yourself, you know what, that's actually kind of important to me, and it could be independent of you both.
Bill Dixon: So for atherectomy, there are many devices. There are currently atherectomy devices that are in trials. There are many that have been in the market forever.
And so I think to myself, when I go to meetings and I see live cases and I talk to physicians that I respect and that I love, and I know that a particular sect of people tend to use a lot of this one particular device, and then I happen to use maybe a lot of this other device. It's very, very different.
And so I think to myself. I believe in what I'm doing. I agree with what I'm doing, but am I underutilizing something because that person does this a lot and so maybe, there's a part of my practice that I'm missing. So one of those parts of my practice that I was missing, at one point was laser atherectomy.
I almost never used laser atherectomy. There are some people that literally always use laser atherectomy, and it does have use and it has use and it has data and instant stenosis in the coronaries, in the periphery. And, and so that changed my practice a little bit. Reentry devices, I never use 'em.
I've been in practice nine years. I did two SFA CTOs today. If I can't get in from above, I get in from below. If I can't get in from above or below, I make the two meat in the middle. But when detour and lymph flow came out, guess what? You gotta use a reentry device. So there's a missing portion of my practice that I got to learn about.
So it does move me when I see what other people do. It doesn't change everything, but it makes me think.
Brian Brown: Yeah. And on the device side, I love watching live cases at meetings like Veeva and, that's and NCVH
Bill Dixon: bill. Don't
Brian Brown: forget NCV h CBH n Ccbh. seeing somebody use something that I may not be aware of or haven't seen use, I'll say, wow, I could really use that.
I could see how that could make my life better. That's my simple litmus test for devices, is to make my life better or worse. I need stuff that make my life better. An example of a drug is Entresto. They had a good trial, they had a randomized trial. It was a good trial, but we didn't just immediately stop treating heart failure the way we had for decades.
We had to gain some experience with it. And that probably took at least three years before people were using it routinely. so sometimes we just have to prove it to ourselves. It's like, are you gonna believe me or your own eyes? so. Sometimes we see the data. Okay. It's compelling. it's not an absolute truth usually.
But it's enough. And again, like Brian said, smart people that you respect, okay? They're using it. All right. Maybe I should figure out a way to use this. Examples. In the device world, the Mitra clip trial, the number to needed to treat was three. That's unheard of. to save a life from my I was mortality.
Yeah. And then the Crest two trial that just came out for carotid st thinning, I think that's gonna move the needle. because it was a good trial.
Bill Dixon: I would say definitely Bill's mentioned twice down number needed to treat. Go back and look at other things either in your field or things that moved medicine and say what is the number needed to treat?
And you will be surprised, you will find that the number needed to treat for a lot of very standard devices or medicines is very, very high.
Brian Brown: Couple hundred. Yeah.
Bill Dixon: So when something comes out and everybody does it, and then it comes out in something like, you know, Impella. To reduce mortality at 30 days and you see that number needed to treat and you're like, wow, this is way better than other standard stuff that we use.
Cynthia Ficara: That's
Anneliese Rhodes: very compelling. That was perfect. Thank you. I think that's a question that every rep wants to know, right? what am I gonna be able to do in order to get them to change their practice and start filing on my product?
Brian Brown: So we, we talked about this on our podcast, the question you don't ask.
Anneliese Rhodes: There you go.
Brian Brown: Why wouldn't you use this now? Um, did not ask, did everybody hear
Cynthia Ficara: that?
Anneliese Rhodes: Who says that, by the way? Bad question. Who says that?
Brian Brown: Oh, I've heard it before.
Bill Dixon: Or, what can I do to get you to use my product? Probably never asked that. Ever.
Anneliese Rhodes: That's so terrible. That's like a, that is not needed up for like the bad rep.
Bill Dixon: I say, well, you can leave now. You don't need to come back. Worry about it. Yeah.
The Real Way to Build Trust With Physicians
Cynthia Ficara: You know. with this whole discussion today, really being on clinical data, do you find that, and I know this is conversationally selective, but leading with data versus a conversation supporting with data, what do you find easier to talk to when a rep comes in about their product and data?
Bill Dixon:Don't lead with data.
Cynthia Ficara: Okay.
Brian Brown: Yeah. All the time here. I'm gonna leave this with you. I'm gonna get your email and email it to you. I just delete it.
Bill Dixon: I'll tell you, it drives me crazy when I get to clinic and someone has dropped a pile of their, and again, you said it's a clean podcast, so I'll refrain from what I was gonna say.
They drop their informational materials like in a stack on top of my keyboard or in front of my computer. I pick those up, I put those directly in the trash. I don't care what it is. Don't do that.
Brian Brown: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think a very savvy person in your field. What I would do, like, I'll give you an example.
When I was in college, I was in a fraternity and they made us call, alumni and ask for money, and they gave us a list. But I, the first thing I did was go through the list and see who gave the year before, and I called them first. So if you could figure out Figure out some way. how does Dr.
A, how does he feel about this? How does he feel about this device? You can ask the techs that do the procedure with you or what's his usual approach, and then, you know, you flat, you, flatter us, maybe flatter us. I don't know, but this is your approach. I'm trying to learn. Can you tell me.
Why you do it this way? Brian, why don't you use more laser? No, you were saying
Bill Dixon: there's a word called flatter us. I didn't really get two different word, or three different words. Flatter us. That was flatter.
Cynthia Ficara: Flatter.
Bill Dixon: I like
Brian Brown: if you,
Cynthia Ficara: you know, it's a randomized term.
Bill Dixon: Honestly, I think what Bill is trying to talk about is you
Brian Brown: that would be the open.
Bill Dixon: You become, figure out what they use. You become useful before you push your product. you get to know that physician before you really try to get them to change anything. You introduce yourself and then you leave. You know what I mean?
Anneliese Rhodes: Yes.
Bill Dixon: You just make a connection over and over again, little by little.
'cause say for instance, that person only uses X product, you need to understand it's an uphill battle. To get them to at least even try their product. And it's not just try, right? You gotta go through all these committees, you gotta go through finance, you gotta go through the lawyers in the hospital.
There's all these steps to get there. So if you want that doctor to do that work and do that, baby steps. AB steps.
Anneliese Rhodes: I love
Cynthia Ficara: that. I think that is excellent advice.
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah.I got one more thing. I just wanna know, just, you know, for edification purposes. So, you know, in our line of work, what we do obviously is pretty intense.
You gotta know all the things. We'll just leave it at that. And you gotta know your clinical data. you actually have to be more clinically savvy. Then you have to be a salesperson in what we do. Yeah. I think that Bo, Cindy and I agree that that's really important is to know everything you can clinically, like we've been talking about.
Have either of you ever had a rep that talks about clinical data? Then lo and behold, you may have either been a part of that paper, or maybe it was one of your, former colleagues that helped write the paper or someone that you studied under and they didn't know it, and now they're presenting on it to you and you're thinking to yourself.
Buddy, did you even do your homework? Did you even look to see where I went to school and who I studied under and who I look up to? Because I feel that's just as important, right? Is to do your homework on the actual clinical paper itself.
Brian Brown: Yeah. It'd be nice
Bill Dixon: to know you're saying do the homework on the actual physician themself and
Anneliese Rhodes: I mean, I
Bill Dixon: think do that.
When they're getting a new job, anybody is gonna look up who's in their practice, where did they go to school? Did they do any research? What sort of work did they do? What are their relationships? Those are so important to know. Yeah.
Brian Brown: But the answer to your question is yes. and even, even people higher up in the company, not just the local people.
And I'll say, well, we were a top 10 enroller in X trial. Oh, you real, you were, I didn't even know that. You came here to make a special trip to talk to us about stuff you should. That might be good to know. you mentioned being clinically savvy in the lab. I never look at reps as salespeople.
I mean, to me they're clinical. I don't, consider their, have quotas and all this stuff. Those are per people in there doing the case with me and I can ask their advice 'cause they see more cases than any single operator. That's just my approach. It's not really intentional, it's just I've never thought of them.
And I told Brian, I think the last one of the last podcasts was, I didn't even know there was a difference. I couldn't figure out what the difference was between sales and clinical. To me, clinical sounds more important ' cause that's what I need. I don't need sales, I need clinical.
What Physicians Actually Need From You
Cynthia Ficara: Well, it sounds like you have some good reps that support you because ultimately the medical device rep that goes into a cath lab that goes into an OR has to bring value to you.
There is a patient on the table at the end of the day. That's what this is all about. And for those that understand clinically what you are doing, why you are doing what you're doing, and to anticipate what will come next to help, just be another set of eyes and ears in that room Should anything go haywire.
Yeah.
Bill Dixon: Yes.
Cynthia Ficara: Yeah.
Bill Dixon: When you have something new, I mean, you need to know the procedure cold. So like, I don't want to get real specific, but there's been a lot of new procedures in the endovascular world that are complex and different, and. If you're in there doing that, you should know what to do, how to do everything and your guys' jobs, which we won't talk about specifically.
It's the same idea. What can go wrong, what tools are gonna need that another company has. Many times, whatever you have is not all the tools needed to complete the case. You need to know what all that is before the case even starts, you need to go to the purchasing person in the lab and say, okay, we have this case plan for X date, we need all these tools.
Do these exist in the cath lab or the or, and can we get these things here? And then you already have 'em all bundled up and ready to go. Yeah.
Brian Brown: One of the things I always wanna know about a new device is. What are all the bad things that can happen? Um, that know that ahead of time? That's yeah,
Anneliese Rhodes: that's super valid.
That's very valid. You're right.
Brian Brown: Yeah. Because it doesn't always go exactly like it does on the video, on the website.
Cynthia Ficara: Right. Is there a bailout? I need to know?
Anneliese Rhodes: Yeah. Yeah. It was a very important thing. I loved this conversation. I was gonna give you guys a quick plug before we wrapped it up for today. y'all had a podcast, was it just your most recent one?
I think. Interviewing a couple of reps and talking about a lot of dos and don'ts and things that you expect from your representatives. I highly encourage everyone listening to go to blue collar ICS on Apple Podcast and listen to the most recent episode that they did, because it was fantastic. I mean, I laughed.
I thought it was, I did so great. I did. I thought of like three people that I know that could listen to it right off the bat.
Brian Brown: you probably knew who I was talking about. Just
Anneliese Rhodes: we
Brian Brown: live in the same town.
Anneliese Rhodes: but it was fantastic. And you know, like the discussion today, y'all bring so much. Thank you for being so open and honest and candid with us today because it's so important for our audience to hear it from your mouths to them specifically.
It's one thing for Cindy and I to talk about it, but when you have real physicians dealing with reps all day long, it's really important that we hear how you guys think and how you process information and what changes your mind and what doesn't, and how you wanna be spoken to and presented to.
So. Thank you both for today. I think you more than answered the rep that wrote us in about a clinical question, and thank you. I don't know. I look forward to doing more of this. What do you think, Cindy?
Cynthia Ficara: Oh, I'm ready for this. This is great. it's so nice to have you both here.
Brian Brown: Maybe we'll have you on our podcast.
Cynthia Ficara: Yes. We're ready. I want to,
Brian Brown: we gotta get change from EE for everyone Right. On our, uh, rating.
Cynthia Ficara: That's right. That's right.
Brian Brown: We gotta change our rating.
Bill Dixon: Yeah. I think Explicits probably ideal for our podcast.
Cynthia Ficara: Yeah.
Brian Brown: That was great. I enjoyed it.
Anneliese Rhodes: Oh, you guys, thank you so much. Thank you guys
Cynthia Ficara: so much.
Anneliese Rhodes: So appreciate it.
So again, blue collar ics, apple Podcast. Hilarious. Good, strong. Y'all did another podcast on the Crest two data. I thought that was fantastic.
Cynthia Ficara: It was real talk.
Anneliese Rhodes: It was real talk. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone wanting to tune in and listen, just to two physicians and more talk about things. I think it's a fantastic podcast.
So thank you guys again. We will have you back on and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to another episode of Secrets and Medical Device Sales.
