There is a unique joy of being a trainer when your students do well . Of course being a trainer in medical field it translates to students, be it radiologists or technologists do better scans be it a cardiac CT or virtual colonoscopy . And also biomedical engineers who excel in selling biomedical and imaging products .
But sometimes like in Mahabharatha your favorite students are in two sides . This sometimes happen when one set of students is radiologists trained by me asking pertinent questions to medical device vendors be it temporal resolution of a CT scanner or gradient strength of an MRI . And on the other side is the vendor who again is trained by me highlighting their product and trying to sell it to radiologists and hospital managements . There is conflict if the vendor tries to missell the product but with the right attitude each of these radiologist-vendor meetings can be an opportunity to highlight the strengths , address weaknesses and build long term relationship and sales . .
I remember sometime back i went to purchase a bag in a bag shop and the salesgirl instead of pushing a costly bag to me was telling me " Sir , that bag wont suit your requirements " .That is rare a salesperson talking against the product which she was selling but in the big picture that was indeed the correct move . Though that particular sale may or may not happen the customer will definitely prefer that shop for future purchases .
Be it a bag or a CT scanner a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your product is very important and most importantly identify customer needs and sell the product or customise it according to the customers needs . And get training in house or outsourced about the product as well as the fundamentals of the domain area you are working in .
I remember the curiosity in the faces of the engineers who came for radiology domain basics training and also the feedback that they are able to face customers better after the classes . They are better equipped to leverage their strengths when facing the customers instead of blindly trying to sell their product to any customer .
Its said a good salesman can sell winter clothes in midday in the desert but that was because he knew the customer was heading to an arctic expedition next day. Point is know your customer and your product thoroughly , Dont mis-sell but sell to give customer delight .
