Gary’s desk is always immaculate. Tina has three unwashed coffee cups and papers spread everywhere. You have medical sales reps who start their morning chatting with team members and others who send a few emails, collect their thoughts, and head out on the road.

The personalities within your office are endless. Even if you divide all the introverts and extroverts, each group will have people with unique traits, sales skills, and fun quirks. Many days, sales leaders and employers see the behind-the-scenes challenges associated with these differences.

It can be difficult to keep everyone happy and engaged when there are so many personalities around the office. This is especially true when you have those few people who simply do not work well together. But when you take clashing personalities and use them to your advantage, that’s when things really get interesting.

The truth is, your sales reps all have something to learn from one another. Their differences have the power to make them stronger as individual medical sales reps — leaders just have to understand how to harness that energy and use it for good.

Here’s how you can make the most of your medical sales team’s differences:

Enforce monthly sales call shadowing

“Enforced” sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s exactly what you’ll need to do when first implementing this strategy. Medical sales reps, by the nature of the job, are creatures of habit. They see who they want, when they want and only stop where they want along the way — all without interruption from other reps.

So, they’ll likely be reluctant, at first, when you throw a wrench into their monthly schedule. However, deep down, medical sales reps love working with their teammates. In fact, more than half (56 percent) of medical sales reps want team members who are supportive/willing to help others, according to our MedReps 2019 Best Places to Work report.  

There’s no better way to encourage your team to show support than to put them in the same car every month. When I say support, though, I don’t mean helping perform tasks or becoming best friends. This support comes in the form of learning from those with differing personalities.

Introverts, for example, will discover new ways to start conversations when in the field. Less organized or underprepared reps will learn new tricks for adding order to their routine. Support will shine through to each person in unique ways. As a result, the monthly sales call shadowing remains fresh and new all year long.

Deliberately pair sales reps with customers

When one medical sales rep leaves, another automatically steps in and works to gain their clients’ trust. This is a tried and true way for ensuring customers aren’t bouncing around from one rep to another, or worse, being nabbed up by a competitor. You may want to assign a rep who is familiar with the client or territory regardless of their sales or communication style.

Brand new customers present the perfect opportunity to create the ultimate sales rep-customer matches. This practice should apply with all clients, though. To do this your sales team needs to share leads and be honest with themselves about optimal personality matches on their team.

They need to deeply understand their co-workers and recognize different personality traits. Giving your employees the chance to connect with kindred-spirit customers will push teamwork and success to a whole new level.

Create a personality matching document for your sales reps. Ask them to fill in a lead’s name, their personality traits, which sales rep would connect best with them and why. They can fill in their own name when necessary but must be able to explain the “why” portion of the worksheet. This activity will ensure you’re using each rep’s unique personality to their ultimate potential.

Take the focus off of work

Believe it or not, everything shouldn’t always revolve around work. You need to make the most out of your team’s differences at all times — not just when dealing with customers.

When planning team meetings and events, call on your most organized and productive reps to take the lead. Then, give them the opportunity to ask their creative co-workers to design email invites and decorate for the party.

No matter what you’re planning, give your team full-reign to put their strengths to use. This shows you recognize their differences and appreciate what each of them has to offer. And they get a chance to appreciate each other in the process.

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How do you make the most out of your team’s different personalities? Let us know!