AI in MedTech Sales: What the Data Reveals About Top Performers

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, AI in MedTech Sales: What the Data Reveals About Top Performers. We're excited you could join us for today's session. My name is Laura Beth Yzuel, and I'll be introducing today's event. Today, our two expert speakers will be responding to the results of a MedTech Dive survey that found that sales reps who use AI at work were nearly three times more likely to hit quota. They'll dig into the survey findings and take a closer look at what top performers are doing differently compared to other reps. Before we get started, I have just a few housekeeping items. Please note the slides will advance automatically throughout the presentation. To enlarge the slides, click the Enlarge Slides button that's located in the top right corner of your presentation window. If you need technical assistance, click on the help widget located on the bottom left corner of your console. Now, we encourage you to submit questions at any time throughout the presentation using the Q&A widget at the bottom of your console. We will try to answer these during the webcast, but if a fuller answer is needed or we run out of time, it will be answered later via email.

So please note, we do capture all your questions. Okay. We are thrilled to be joined by two industry experts today. We have Lee Smith, co-founder and VP of Customer Experience with AcuityMD, and we have Gordon Single, Senior Director of Commercial Operations at Aerin Medical. So to kick us off, I'd like to ask Lee first to introduce himself. So Lee, can you tell us about your background and your work? Yeah, absolutely. Lee Smith here. I'm one of the co-founders at AcuityMD, and we are an AI solution for the medical device industry. My background, actually, before starting at AcuityMD, I worked in the industry at both Zimmer Biomet and Medtronic, mostly in commercial roles. So a lot of first-hand experience with the go-to-market motion and how nuanced it is, and yeah, now we're building an AI solution for the MedTech industry, and we kind of pivoted to this over the last year or so, and I think there's a lot of exciting stuff on the horizon. So excited for the conversation today.

Yeah, absolutely. Glad you're here today. Gordon, how about you? Sure. Excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me. My background is actually in commercial operations with a focus on helping sales team use data and analytics to make better decisions and operate more effectively. My current role, I work across areas like sales strategy, business intelligence, customer operations, and field effectiveness. I partner closely with both sales leadership in the field, and a big part of my work is taking really complex data, like big data sets, and turning it into something that's actionable for the field, and the commercial teams. Most recently, that's included looking at how AI can help us create more efficiencies, surface better insights, and improve how reps prioritize their time and opportunities.

Yeah. All right. Let's get right into the discussion here. We'll start out with some background. To set some context here, Lee, what are the top challenges MedTech sales reps face today? And then from there, Lee, can you give us the background of this survey AcuityMD and MedTech Dive recently conducted and some of the top findings?

Yeah, absolutely. And, maybe we'll start with some of the challenges of the role in the industry. I think there's a lot of challenges that MedTech reps have always faced. I think, at least as long as I've been in the industry, it's certainly been a challenging role. You're not only selling, but you're supporting, you're servicing, you're a product expert. And so you get pulled in a ton of different directions. But I think, beyond that, especially today, there's just an increasing amount of complexity across the commercial landscape. You have kind of closer scrutiny of purchases by VACs or health systems. You've got a lot of hospital consolidation going on. You've got the transition to outpatient surgery, of course.

I think there's a lot of competition in the market, and then there's a lot of changing reimbursement and policy dynamics that have a major downstream effect on the commercial role, too. So you add that all up, and there's certainly a lot to consider and a lot of challenges in the commercial role, the selling role in MedTech.

And I think, the second part of your question on the survey, if we kind of transition to summarize what we did. I think, we ran a survey with MedTech Dive. We surveyed 150 medical device sales reps really to understand kind of how they're using AI today, what the opportunities are. And so a lot of findings that we're going to get into throughout the conversation today. You kind of see some of them here, but we've got some really good benchmarks on kind of where the industry is as far as their use of AI, and then some early results, too, on kind of the performance and quota attainment of folks that are actually adopting AI today versus those who maybe haven't yet. So a lot of interesting findings that we will dive into today.

Yeah, these are some interesting stats there. I like seeing that. So Lee, in a challenging selling environment, reps need to be much more strategic about where they spend their time, and we know AI is a game changer there. So what did the survey say about where reps are spending the most time today?

Yeah. So as part of the survey, we actually asked this group of reps what are the work activities that they focus on that don't improve sales outcomes, right? And they told us a number of things. A few of those were, a lot of travel, so driving between cases or even air travel as well. Beyond that, replanning their schedule, right, when a last-minute change comes up or a case got canceled. And then determining which opportunities to prioritize, how they should be spending their time. And so what we learned from that was that 84% of reps told us that they are spending more than three hours a week on activities that they believe have little to no impact on sales outcomes. And so a lot of these are administrative tasks. They're tactical tasks. They may be required to do some of these, but it's summarizing notes, right? It's editing an email to reach out to a surgeon.

It's driving from case to case. And so, a number of these things are areas where really AI, I think, could help improve their efficiency and put more time back in their data to actually spend on true selling and revenue-generating activities.

Yeah, this is interesting to see here, this stat. So Gordon, given your role in commercial operations and the work you do with the field, does this sound familiar? Are reps spending too much time on administrative and tactical tasks each week?

Absolutely. We see this, just as Lee mentioned. Reps have to spend time updating their opportunity data, customer contacts, for example, in our CRM. And that's just really part of the job and part of the administrative work that they have to do. And not only that, we have to constantly remind reps to actually do these types of things. So it's not something that they enjoy doing or proactively do. We're constantly reminding them to update things. So ultimately, what we really want for our reps to be doing is focus more on strategic ways to close a deal or an opportunity rather than just spending time doing admin work.

Yeah. Lee, can you discuss how AI adoption is having an impact on sales reps and the work they do? Can you tell us more about the survey findings in this area specifically? Yeah. Of course. I think first of all, what we found is that AI is not yet widely used, at least at the time of this survey, and recognize that things are moving very quickly here. But we ran this survey a few months back. Only 36% of the reps told us that they had used AI at work. So 64% mentioned they aren't using AI actively for their roles. Kind of a low benchmark. I think there's a number of reasons for that. I think we certainly expect it to increase, but kind of low starting point relative to how quickly we've seen AI take off kind of generally across all industries. And I think another big finding is kind of how AI use relates to quota achievement, right? And there's been a big difference here from our survey in those that were using AI and their results relative to quota versus those who had not used AI. And what we found is that the ones that were using AI, that 36% cohort, they were three times more likely to have met or exceeded quota than those that weren't.

And so that was certainly interesting. I think definitely important to kind of caveat that it's not causation, right? So we're not saying that if you use AI, you're automatically going to hit your quota, or if you don't use AI, you're not going to hit it. But definitely a connection here and kind of an interesting data point to evaluate over time, I think, as we continue to move forward. But kind of good trends and results for those that have already started to adopt AI into their role.

Yeah. One thing you discovered in the survey is that reps aren't necessarily getting the most out of AI as they could. So could you elaborate more on that? Yeah. Absolutely. I think what we found is that today, most AI use, and this probably isn't surprising as a starting point, but it's more tactical among medical device sales reps, and it's less strategic. And so we think there's a big opportunity here moving forward. But most reps, for example, they're using AI to help them draft an email or organize a task. And so these are certainly valuable use cases, and it's likely saving them a lot of time, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg in what AI can deliver to them. And, what was interesting on the bottom right here, we found only 11% were actually using AI to surface information or insights that they couldn't easily find elsewhere. And so back to Gordon's point about, actually spending more time figuring out how to close a deal, or getting an edge, or prepping for that next meeting with the hospital or the surgeon. That's where we think that there's maybe the next big opportunity on the horizon.

Yeah. Gordon, does this sound familiar in terms of AI rep adoption, and when it comes to how your own team uses AI? Could you just walk us through what that AI journey looks like? Sure, absolutely. What we're seeing, that there's actually a really big difference between just using AI as a productivity tool and using it as a decision support tool. So drafting an email faster, in 30 seconds instead of five minutes, that's nice to have. But the real unlock is when a rep can use AI to make a better decision about where to spend the next hour or even their days or week ahead.

That's where it becomes much more strategic in helping reps understand which accounts or opportunities deserve their attention and their time. What dynamics have changed within their territory, or what information they should need to know before walking into a customer conversation.

It's a great job at pre-call planning, for example. So reps at Aerin Medical are currently using AcuityAI, and many are already asking much more strategic questions. Reps will use a prompt, something like this, "Generate a territory snapshot for a MedTech rep covering ENT procedures in a certain county in Georgia, and summarize their procedure volumes for the last four quarters, highlighting volume trends."

Within a few seconds, they can immediately get all of that data at their fingertips and help make informed decisions about where they should be spending their time. Or understanding referral patterns even. We have reps asking AcuityAI to create lists of top referring physicians in a certain region to get a better sense of where to focus outreach efforts on. That's really powerful information to have that would take a long time for a rep to research on their own, if they even know how to do that or access the right information. So it's been game-changing in that regards.

Yeah, and one stat that stood out in the report is that 60% of reps who did not make quota report that their organization prohibits AI use in some way. I saw that earlier. So Gordon, how did your team embrace AI and adopt it? And given your team is using AI already, what are your plans to increase adoption?

Sure. Yeah. We're not a large MedTech company yet. I would say we're a later-stage startup company. Decent size, but not a large company yet. And I think that can be helpful, especially when it comes to driving adoption of AI because we don't require a ton of approvals to implement any changes to the organization. So part of our company culture really is about embracing innovation, and AI is definitely part of that. As a team, we've been encouraged to use AI on the job, identify opportunities to scale without adding additional headcount, for example. It really all started, too, with our company. At the top, our board of directors actually strongly encourages the team to use AI in their jobs.

And our leadership completely endorses that as well. In terms of increasing adoption, one way we're doing that is we baked AI into our new rep training, for example. So it's simply part of the role now that we onboard reps at the very beginning, showing them exactly how to use the AI functionality that's available to them. And I believe that's a great way to actually drive engagement with the reps and get them encouraged to use that from the very start.

Yeah. Interesting there. And AI is certainly a powerful technology. But let's pivot and talk about MedTech specific AI solutions. Lee, why is it so beneficial to use tools that were specifically designed for this industry as opposed to the horizontal tools that many folks are familiar with, like a ChatGPT, for example?

Yeah. It's a great question. I think it's a really important question. And, beyond just using AI or not using AI, I think there are really clear differences across the types of AI tools that are available in the space. And I actually think, some of the limitations of the horizontal tools likely account for the low baseline AI use in this space. And we'll get into that in a bit. I think it is important to note, when we did conduct the survey, most of the AI users, about 70%, told us that they were using general purpose tools like ChatGPT. So they hadn't yet evolved to a true industry specific solution. And I think what we've kind of learned is that generic LLMs know a great deal about language, and they're great at things like drafting an email or refining a note, or developing that type of content. But they don't know what matters to a specific Med Tech company. So this is where the context and the data come into play in really deeply understanding what each persona needs to ultimately surface a really valuable result to a prompt or a question that you have. And so questions that come up for MedTech around procedure volumes or referral patterns, especially when you're talking about a specific product or a specific geography. That's not going to be data and information that is accessible for a generic AI tool to pull in. So once you start getting to these fairly basic questions that someone in this space is going to have about their market or what they should be doing next or where they should be focused, that's where a generic LLM is going to fall short. Primarily because of the data it has access to and how it connects all that data. And I think that's one layer, which I think is fairly basic, but in addition to that, the evaluations which ensure that the answer you're going to get through your prompt are actually grounded in reality.

That's also really critical, especially for any sort of enterprise-grade solution. We've seen generic LLMs actually recommend a competitor product in some instances because they don't have the context around your organization and everything that you care about and all the products that roll into your organization. So that's the last thing that you actually want to put in front of your rep. And so there's a number of other examples like that are very unique and specific to the vertical, that you really need to take into consideration as you're deploying solutions in this space.

And I think the last thing I'll mention is around security and cost. And those are, of course, important to any organization. But if you're routing all of your prompts through a really expensive LLM model, that could expose you to significant token spend. So how you're actually routing prompts, accounting for that cost, another variable to take into account. So I think what we've learned is that there's really a lot of considerations when you're building AI for a unique vertical with such a nuanced go-to-market motion like MedTech. And so, that's kind of what you have to balance or at least consider as you're looking to use any AI tool, whether it be a generic one or something more specific to the space.

Lee, I completely agree with you. At Aerin Medical, I know we're accomplishing things that we wouldn't be able to today with ChatGPT alone, for example. I think a big use case for us, just to add context to this, is around pre-call planning. Our reps want to be as targeted and personable as possible. The reps at Aerin Medical are preparing by prompting AcuityAI, for example, asking for relevant intel on a specific doctor that they plan to have a conversation with. Understanding their procedure volume, their payer mix volume. Do they see Medicare patients predominantly? What percent of mix is that, for example, which is great. Who they're connected to, what questions they should be asking, what objections they may anticipate having to encounter.

With the help of AI, their pre-call plans are significantly better, making the conversations and business reviews that they have significantly better with their customers. Yeah, that's impressive there, and appreciate those examples. And Gordon, as your reps are using AcuityAI, do you have any advice on how to implement this kind of solution successfully, and especially as it relates to change management?

Sure, yeah. Change management definitely comes from the top, as I was mentioning earlier, that we're really embracing AI as a company, and that applies to our commercial team as well. I would say having reps also learn from one another has also been very helpful for change management. Sharing success stories or prompts at their weekly team meetings has been really impactful. Another example just to share during new hire training that we do, I typically demo the AcuityMD platform. I show them all the information available to them for a specific provider in their territory. After spending maybe 10 to 15 minutes going over just this portion of the data that's available to them, I write a one-sentence prompt into AcuityMD AI and pretending to be them, ready to meet with a customer to discuss growth opportunities within their practice. Within one or two minutes, the AI output incredibly comprehensive summary of all the data points available, but also summarizes the trends, identifies insights that are relevant during their upcoming meeting. It's incredibly powerful to view that level of output generated in such a short period of time. Reps typically ask right then and there to copy and paste that and send an email to them immediately, which is a great validation that this is really useful data for them.

Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for sharing just all those insights with us today. I wanted to shift to some questions from our audience. So let's jump right into these. This one says, earlier on, or just a little while ago, actually, Gordon mentioned an interesting thing about AI call planning. So, Lee, what are you seeing among your customers in terms of how they're using AI?

Yeah. I think, look, it's been really exciting to see all the different ways our customers are using AI. There are a few, I think, more common themes that have started to emerge. We actually recently did an analysis of 30,000 prompts from our customer base to understand kind of what themes are starting to come out and how we're seeing folks get the most value from it. And I think a couple that I'll mention, number one is building smarter account strategies, right? There's a few ways that this plays out, but really getting a little bit deeper into some of the insights that maybe would be a bit trickier with kind of typical dashboards or legacy UI and actually asking the AI to compare procedure volumes across competing therapies or identifying surgeons whose procedure mix or procedure trends have shifted over the last year. So then you can actually track, is there risk in an account or is there the opportunity to capitalize on a good target who's increasing their volume? So really getting very refined with account strategies and where you're prioritizing your time is definitely one bucket.

And then I think another common set of prompts that we've seen is around mapping the relationships that drive referrals. And I think this is really critical and more so in some markets than others, but we'll see prompts like, who are this physician's top referring providers? Who else should they be educating the market that are maybe referring to competitive physicians? Or, who is competing for referrals around my customer, and what does the market share look like? And so this can unlock a whole set of actions downstream on referring or educating referring providers. So those are a couple examples that we've seen start to emerge over the last kind of, let's call it three to four months of data and number of prompts.

Yeah, great answer there. Thank you for jumping on that one, Lee. Okay, this next one, it says, from what you're seeing, are top performers really more successful because they use AI or are high performers simply the kind of people who are eager to adopt new tools? I like this question. Gordon, I'm going to send this one over to you. Sure, yeah. In my experience, the reps who are generally more tech forward have embraced AI, and they're also the ones that are normally leaning into new technologies just in general. But the folks who tend to also be high performers, they're the ones that are more curious and kind of want to learn. Being curious, asking questions, I believe is a key trait of being a good sales rep. I see those things going hand in hand with the role and in previous role.

The reps who are eager to learn and eager to get involved with AI are also the high performers looking for that competitive edge. Great answer there. Thank you for that. Okay, this one says, one area in particular that reps are probably learning more about is when it comes to AI is prompting, and how to write effective prompts. Do you have any prompt tips there for a med tech sales rep who is starting to engage more with AI? It's all about the prompts here. Lee, how about you? Could you handle this one for us? Yes. Yeah, sure thing. And I think, first of all, some of the examples that Gordon mentioned are kind of great guidance in general, right? He kind of shared a few specific prompts that his team has already put into action, which I think are great. But in short, being specific about the output that you need typically leads to better results. And the more details, include time frames, include geographical areas, include examples, that typically leads to a better response. Focusing on the outcome that you're trying to achieve, right? So if you give AI a specific goal, it will typically kind of work backwards and reason to get you what you need. And then I think really the biggest piece of advice, though, is just to get started, right?

As you kind of reason with the system and ask a question, you will uncover what more you might need to ask or what detail you might need to fill in, or what follow-up questions might make sense to ultimately get the output that you're looking for. And the more comfortable that you get with the system, that is really the fastest way to learn, and I think you'll be shocked at how much value and substance actually comes from a basic question and kind of going a little bit deeper and chatting with the solution. So that's, I think, in short, what we've learned.

Yeah. Great advice there, and agree completely. Just got to get in there. All right, this next one. Gordon, since you're hiring sales reps, can AI shorten the ramp-up time for new hires or reps being assigned to new territories? Great question there. Great question. Yeah, and absolutely. We've had new reps get up to speed significantly faster because of AI and AcuityAI specifically. What's been interesting for us is historically, we preferred hiring reps with ENT experience only, which makes their onboarding easier because they know the space, they know the products, they know the customers. That makes sense, right? What I'm seeing now is that AI has been able to level the playing field, and that we're now able to hire top talent reps without any ENT experience because we can see them ramping up much quicker in the role, thanks to the data available to them with the addition of AI helping to synthesize everything.

That's great to hear, so thank you for that. Okay, that is all the time we have today. I would just like to thank our speakers, Lee Smith and Gordon Single, for just sharing your insights from the survey about AI use among medical device sales reps.

This transformer technology clearly has enormous potential. I feel like we just kind of got the surface today to help MedTech companies get devices into the hands of physicians and surgeons so that their patients can achieve better outcomes and lead healthier, happier lives. The right strategic approach to AI adoption and the right solution will make it possible for more sales reps and more companies to meet quota in the months and years to come. So Lee and Gordon, we appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise with us today. If you're curious to learn more about AcuityAI based on what Lee shared, head over to AcuityMD.com. And I'd also like to thank our audience for joining us today. We hope to see you again soon. Have a great day.