DALLAS – Medtrade speaker Ty Bello is known for his insightful and high energy sales presentations. For the benefit of HME providers in the dog days of summer, Medtrade Monday sat down with Bello, owner of Dallas-based Team@Work for some much-needed inspiration and information.
Medtrade Monday: What should sales teams be doing now? Is there such thing as a summer swoon?
Bello: The metrics and the cadence that a sales person has—starting in January and going all the way through December—should not change seasonally. Referrals may go up or down with seasonality. That’s the truth. But the behavior of your metrics and your cadence, your sales calls, your rhythm, and the frequency by which you’re doing those should not fluctuate that differently from season to season. We need to be the constant that’s out there as sales professionals. We must stick to our metrics and cadence that have been assigned to us from our leadership throughout the year regardless of seasonality.
Medtrade Monday: What are the biggest business concerns that you heard from attendees at Medtrade 2024 in Dallas, Texas?
Ty Bello: HME providers are concerned about growing their business and serving patients. If you go back 25 years, we were concerned about the same thing. What we’re probably facing today, more so than ever before, is the workforce has changed quite a bit.
Medtrade Monday: In what ways?
Bello: Maintaining and keeping employees for a period of time is a little bit more difficult than what it was years ago. Getting new employees on board and retaining them are two of the biggest things that I keep hearing from folks. We’re always trying to get sales ahead of the business and operations, but today it’s really about retention in many respects.
Medtrade Monday: What’s the best way to retain people?
Bello: We must adapt to the times that we live in today. Long gone are the sit-down-and-learn in a classroom for long extended periods of time to learn the sales process, to learn our products, to learn our services. We as leadership for a sales organization must adapt to the way people learn. Whether you are hiring a generation X, a generation Y, or a generation Z—we’ve got to adapt to their learning style. Their learning style is different from a baby boomer’s learning style.
They need more hands-on learning, more on-the-job training, more in-the-field training, and more experiential training. We need to use other forms of media including videos and things that might be available online. Our manufacturing partners, for example, have done training videos on the products and services they are selling through us.
Medtrade Monday: Are some generations more fond of work than others?
Bello: There is an absolute difference in the Gen X and Gen Zs that are out there today in comparison to the Ys and the Boomers. It is really cultural. Among Gen X and Gen Z, expectations are higher. They want things their way and they want them now. That was not the way the boomer generation and the Y generation were raised.
Medtrade Monday: What were the differences?
Bello: There was a sense of anticipation among boomers and Gen Y. There was a sense of accomplishment. They said, ‘I need to put the work in to get what I want.’ Unfortunately today we have instant gratification.
Medtrade Monday: How did the pandemic affect that mindset?
Bello: It threw all of that a curve ball. Combine generation Z and generation X together, and add in the disruption of the pandemic. You get a work force that’s hard to hire and hard to retain. That said, there are really good millennials—really good Z and really good gen Xers out there who are willing to work hard and earn it. You just have to find them. I’m not throwing all of them under the bus by any means.
Medtrade Monday: Are great salespeople born or made?
Bello: I would say it’s both. There is an innate capability of a sales person to communicate and teach and earn someone’s trust. That is naturally born inside of them. It might not be in sales, but life in general. From an education standpoint, there are quintessential sales principles that must be taught.
People don’t wake up saying, ‘I’m going to be a sales rep.’ They wake up knowing that they can influence people, and by influencing people they might be able to sell if they do it in an educational teaching kind of way—not a pressure sales type of way—more of a relational sale. You come into sales with some innate capabilities, and we can teach you the rest to make you a wonderful sales professional.
Medtrade Monday: Has Baby Boom demand arrived or is it still coming?
Bello: We’re in it and I think it’s pretty robust at this moment for the baby boomers born between 1946 to 1964. Those 1964 baby boomers are about 60 right now, so you’ve got years to come for demand. About 10,000 people or so are turning 65 every single day here in the United States, so I believe we’ve got several years left before that wears out. Realistically that demand is not going to go away. There is another generation behind them that will be turning 65, and their needs will be as great, and maybe in some respects greater.
Medtrade Monday: What’s your level of optimism these days about the future of the DME industry?
Bello: I’m highly optimistic, and I’m not even cautiously optimistic. I’m highly optimistic because the services and products we provide to patients and their families will never go away. The modality in which it is delivered, the complexity or the technology of that equipment will definitely increase and get better and change. However, the need for us as an industry to serve patients and families will remain. The referral community will never completely go away, and there will always be a place at the table in the post-acute care arena for HME providers who have adapted and grown with the times.