Confessions of a former electrosurgery rep

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Anonymous

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I've always said that the best promotion available at ES is the ability to leave to an A level company on your own terms, without being pushed out by management. I was lucky enough to do that. I was also lucky enough to perform very well while here which I attribute to gut busting hard work and two excellent managers that I trusted my career with. Now looking from the outside in, Never have I seen a division do so little with so much. They do hire good people, hard working sales hungry people that will work 80 hour weeks away from their families to hit plan. The products are very very good. Altrus is great when it is working well. I was a top rep with the product and scrubbed over 50 cases and only had minor issues. If I ever need surgery myself, I will find a surgeon who uses the 5000. If my wife ever needs a hyst, I will insist on Altrus. If she needs any other procedures, I have enough goldvac being used I would find one of those guys. I have zero to gain financially from all of this having left the company, but I believe in the clinical value of the products to this day.

All that said, SM and DM are crushing the morale of the sales force, what little of each there is left. Late to party with Altrus, way over priced product, refusal to grant no charge trials, management by fear...I could keep going. The products are so good...argon, thermogard pads, goldvac, pulse coag is amazing... The managers are even pretty good too. ZD and BE could be rock stars at an A level company. Even DD at the home office is light years ahead of his colleagues. Its just that from the top down, the problems begin.

Its like moving away from a house you worked hard to build, then watching the new owners just run it down.
 






Well said. I too worked at Conmed and left when they pushed Goldvac down my throat. I closed major deals for Conmed and trained most of the sales force. I refused to work for SM and for good reason. After I left, he told everyone that I had nothing to do with a major IDN that I converted and that it was all contracts. They lost the IDN 4 months after I left and the VP of the IDN still has dinner with me to this day. I now work for a much better company and will be a thorn in SM's back for many years to come!
 


















Anonymous said:
I've always said that the best promotion available at ES is the ability to leave to an A level company on your own terms, without being pushed out by management. I was lucky enough to do that. I was also lucky enough to perform very well while here which I attribute to gut busting hard work and two excellent managers that I trusted my career with. Now looking from the outside in, Never have I seen a division do so little with so much. They do hire good people, hard working sales hungry people that will work 80 hour weeks away from their families to hit plan. The products are very very good. Altrus is great when it is working well. I was a top rep with the product and scrubbed over 50 cases and only had minor issues. If I ever need surgery myself, I will find a surgeon who uses the 5000. If my wife ever needs a hyst, I will insist on Altrus. If she needs any other procedures, I have enough goldvac being used I would find one of those guys. I have zero to gain financially from all of this having left the company, but I believe in the clinical value of the products to this day.

All that said, SM and DM are crushing the morale of the sales force, what little of each there is left. Late to party with Altrus, way over priced product, refusal to grant no charge trials, management by fear...I could keep going. The products are so good...argon, thermogard pads, goldvac, pulse coag is amazing... The managers are even pretty good too. ZD and BE could be rock stars at an A level company. Even DD at the home office is light years ahead of his colleagues. Its just that from the top down, the problems begin.

Its like moving away from a house you worked hard to build, then watching the new owners just run it down.
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If your wife needs a hysterectomy, I suggest a product that actually seals and divides tissue. If you ever need surgery yourself, I recommend an ESU that is not 10-yr old technology.
 






Anonymous said:
Well said. I too worked at Conmed and left when they pushed Goldvac down my throat. I closed major deals for Conmed and trained most of the sales force. I refused to work for SM and for good reason. After I left, he told everyone that I had nothing to do with a major IDN that I converted and that it was all contracts. They lost the IDN 4 months after I left and the VP of the IDN still has dinner with me to this day. I now work for a much better company and will be a thorn in SM's back for many years to come!
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You tell em Brad!!! You are gonna hurt SM's feelings...keep it up.
 






Anonymous said:
You tell em Brad!!! You are gonna hurt SM's feelings...keep it up.
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Dude, don't forget that when you left you were number 2 in the country and your territory was 180% of plan. That territory is now last in the country. Must of been corporate contracts fault. By the way, I was in one of the training classes when SM said that so I can attest. Once again SM pushing out a good rep. Where did he go?
 






All of you guys love to hate SM. how about you have some ownership of where you are? Not only with CNMD, but also in your career? What were you doing before conmed? Have you left? If so, what are you doing now? Is your career better? Could you have gotten to where you are now without the entry level medical device job that you had at conmed?

Time to look in the mirror. Make yourself better at conmed. Move on if you want. Better yet, stick around. Hit your number and become a manger a 28 years old.

My god people. Look at your opportunity. If this company is so bad, just be better than the lowest common demoniator and get to the next level.
 






Anonymous said:
All of you guys love to hate SM. how about you have some ownership of where you are? Not only with CNMD, but also in your career? What were you doing before conmed? Have you left? If so, what are you doing now? Is your career better? Could you have gotten to where you are now without the entry level medical device job that you had at conmed?

Time to look in the mirror. Make yourself better at conmed. Move on if you want. Better yet, stick around. Hit your number and become a manger a 28 years old.

My god people. Look at your opportunity. If this company is so bad, just be better than the lowest common demoniator and get to the next level.
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Spot on...conmed only hires b2b. Ask any recruiter the A companies won't even look at you unless you want to be an associate rep.
 






Anonymous said:
All of you guys love to hate SM. how about you have some ownership of where you are? Not only with CNMD, but also in your career? What were you doing before conmed? Have you left? If so, what are you doing now? Is your career better? Could you have gotten to where you are now without the entry level medical device job that you had at conmed?

Time to look in the mirror. Make yourself better at conmed. Move on if you want. Better yet, stick around. Hit your number and become a manger a 28 years old.

My god people. Look at your opportunity. If this company is so bad, just be better than the lowest common demoniator and get to the next level.
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Go back to Canada Dickhead!
 


















If my wife ever needs a hyst, I will insist on Altrus.

Considering that there are maybe 10 surgeons in the entire US that use Altrus, good luck finding a hospital that carries the product. We can't even give it away.
 






Anonymous said:
If my wife ever needs a hyst, I will insist on Altrus.

Considering that there are maybe 10 surgeons in the entire US that use Altrus, good luck finding a hospital that carries the product. We can't even give it away.
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The reason you can't give it away is because you don't know how to establish value through procedural selling. All you have ever sold is bovies and disposables. Very few reps know how large the IMA is.

Go back to selling bovies, SM doesn't have the intelligence to play in the vessel sealing sandbox!
 






Every day i'm getting my ass handed to me with Altrus. I get my key surgeons very comfortable with it (both colorectal/foregut and GYN) procedurally and they like it, but tell me across the board that it doesn't add real value to the cases and therefore it will never fly through value analysis. Also, need consensus from ENT and other specialties using full range of Ligasure. The Enseal users are tied into Ethicon/JnJ bundles and the Harmonic Scalpel, and even though they agree en mass Altrus better than Enseal, it comes down to value add and lack of data.

I've just got an offer with Intuitive, so I'm moving onward/upward.
 






Just like many other reps that thought the grass was greener on the other side, you will want to come back to this organization. We have the best products and the best upper level management. I have sold for this company left and came back, so I know first hand. Conmed is a world class organization and will continue to be so.
 












Anonymous said:
Just like many other reps that thought the grass was greener on the other side, you will want to come back to this organization. We have the best products and the best upper level management. I have sold for this company left and came back, so I know first hand. Conmed is a world class organization and will continue to be so.
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That really is Sean, he is the only one who ever came back because he couldn't cut it elsewhere.
 






And just to illustrate how hard it was to get back to Conmed, I had to backstab all my friends during the interview process by coaching them on what to do. Why is that so bad, because we were all interviewing for the same position and they didn't know that I was interviewing also. I will do whatever it takes to get to the top. I have to go write up some more reps now. Good selling!
 






Anonymous said:
Just like many other reps that thought the grass was greener on the other side, you will want to come back to this organization. We have the best products and the best upper level management. I have sold for this company left and came back, so I know first hand. Conmed is a world class organization and will continue to be so.
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Is this for real? There is only one person in the whole company who would actually say this. So incredibly depressing that the VP of sales is actually posting on this site.
 






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