Salient Surgical Technologies

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I agree. This company only has one major product line that works only a little better than the conventional method. If you get a really good champion in your territory, you may be set. Otherwise you may fall on your face and out of a job. Get some other experience for your resume first.
 






A horrible company to work for! Most managers have no management experience or training. They have an arrogant attitude towards their customers with one mediocre product line that is overpriced and no respect for their sales team. Last year they changed the comp plan three times including the cutting of salaries. As the previous poster stated, if you have a strong champion, you may be okay but, many of those champions are actually paid as consultants. NOT where I would want to land. Believe me, I'm trying to get out......
 






Anonymous said:
A horrible company to work for! Most managers have no management experience or training. They have an arrogant attitude towards their customers with one mediocre product line that is overpriced and no respect for their sales team. Last year they changed the comp plan three times including the cutting of salaries. As the previous poster stated, if you have a strong champion, you may be okay but, many of those champions are actually paid as consultants. NOT where I would want to land. Believe me, I'm trying to get out......
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What difficulty do you have moving from a company where you have experience selling capital equipment in the O.R. to ortho's? Cant you take that experience / contact list and get out in about two months with another 6 figure job?

I understand the product line is limited but aren't the reasons I mentioned above the exact reasons people join the company in the first place?

Please enlighten me if my line of thinking is off.
 






This company is on a downhill slide for the last 18 months. They fired almost everyone who knew how to run the company after they hired David Brown, who was fired 11 months after he was hired to run sales and marketing. They have no training department since he fired the director and associate; its now run by an admin. The senior management staff has seen complete turnover with the most recent departure of the head of HR which is now being run by a lawyer who knows nothing about the department. The CEO is arrogant and runs the company for his ego gratification thinking they are the next US Surgical...right..... They haven't made money in 10 years and will probably not since a new competitor has come out with the same product at half the price. Go to a more stable company.
 






I appreciate the above comments as I've been watching this thread because I am interviewing with them today. I cam also say I have heard similar things from a recruiter/friend. I know the VP of Sales because I worked for Covidien
for a few years and I am told they are, in fact, trying to "turn it in to the next US Surgical". I'm told they let a bunch of people go last year and are now hiring a bunch back.
Sounds to me like it's for sure not a job for a new rep. If this guy can convince me they have a plan in place to make a move I will look at it. But I would never take the job thinkingnit was going to be a breeze.
I am going to want to know FOR SURE whether the products have been through VAC and if there are surgeon champions in the territory. I live in a major
city and that is a huge potential roadblock if you don't have a book of business to leverage. Just a thought, and something anyone else out their considering this company may want to think about.
 












Anonymous said:
I appreciate the above comments as I've been watching this thread because I am interviewing with them today. I cam also say I have heard similar things from a recruiter/friend. I know the VP of Sales because I worked for Covidien
for a few years and I am told they are, in fact, trying to "turn it in to the next US Surgical". I'm told they let a bunch of people go last year and are now hiring a bunch back.
Sounds to me like it's for sure not a job for a new rep. If this guy can convince me they have a plan in place to make a move I will look at it. But I would never take the job thinkingnit was going to be a breeze.
I am going to want to know FOR SURE whether the products have been through VAC and if there are surgeon champions in the territory. I live in a major
city and that is a huge potential roadblock if you don't have a book of business to leverage. Just a thought, and something anyone else out their considering this company may want to think about.
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you're interviewing with Kirk in Atlanta. ha! great job giving yourself away dude
 






Joe is trying to turn it into the next US Surgical and that would be great if this was 1995 when Surgical was the only game in town and it was OK to have a workplace that was a cross between Peyton Place and Thunderdome.

If I recall correctly, there were a bunch of US Surgical hires some years back on the R&D side followed more recently by more Surgical hires in Sales and Marketing. The big problem is that all of those hires (especially the recent ones) were no longer welcome at Surgical due to the culture shift within Covidien. US Surgical was legendarily unprofessional and was an environment in which kicking ass was more important than...well, anything. Joe is an ass-kicker. He's a bright guy, but he, too, likes kicking ass and values that trait in others, even if they don't have the knowledge or capabilities to back it up (which, after years at US Surgical, many don’t).

The R&D guys were strong in doing line extensions but very weak in research and brand new product development and Marketing in Surgical was more Sales support than anything else and not what most of us think as true Marketing. In short, Salient brought on a bunch of folks who could make "me-too" products, sell only based on price competitiveness, and had limited experience with complex missionary sales and marketing.

While the clinical need for the product can be debated, the product itself is very good. The Bovie product is a second-tier knockoff of the device Salient had years ago.

Ask when they anticipate needing more funding or even if they can get more funding. Salient got $17.9M in Series F financing in October ‘08 and you should try to know how long that can carry them. They’ve got backing from Medtronic and although that carries a lot of weight, Big Blue might be losing patience.
 












To the person who brought up asking if the products have been through VAC and if they have Surgeon champions on-board is thinking the right way. However its not just about the Surgeons, the hospital and ALL the Surgeons/staff need to be on-board with it because if you have just one or two champions and they leave the hospital you are screwed. Like the other person said the value of the device is up for debate and you need everybody to believe in it to keep it going. I am in the Northeast and rarely ever did I see this product being used. Doesnt mean its not good or that hospitals in this area do not have it but coming from a lot of time in Ortho (where they are targeting) I can tell you very few care about blood loss. If you do not get a guarantee for at least a year I am not sure I would want to sell this. With the way hospitals are going and how hard it is to put new products through VAC and on top of that the fact that very few surgeons give a fuck about blood loss it will be one tough road to get product sold and money in your pocket. Good luck.
 






Anonymous said:
To the person who brought up asking if the products have been through VAC and if they have Surgeon champions on-board is thinking the right way. However its not just about the Surgeons, the hospital and ALL the Surgeons/staff need to be on-board with it because if you have just one or two champions and they leave the hospital you are screwed. Like the other person said the value of the device is up for debate and you need everybody to believe in it to keep it going. I am in the Northeast and rarely ever did I see this product being used. Doesnt mean its not good or that hospitals in this area do not have it but coming from a lot of time in Ortho (where they are targeting) I can tell you very few care about blood loss. If you do not get a guarantee for at least a year I am not sure I would want to sell this. With the way hospitals are going and how hard it is to put new products through VAC and on top of that the fact that very few surgeons give a fuck about blood loss it will be one tough road to get product sold and money in your pocket. Good luck.
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would this still be decent way to break into medical, coming from B2B?
 












So let me see if I have this straight. Reasons to not work for this company are as follows.

1. you'll need to sell something that people aren't already buying.
2. Ambivilence is an objection.
3. U.S. Surgicals corporate culture sucked.

I'm sincerely not trying to be a smart ass but these are the broadest themes of the last 10 posts. I suppose if your current "sales" job didn't expect you to place new products. Your prospects were calling you and the corporate culture was like disneyland then yes this would be a bad transition for you. Again not being a smart ass I just thought a logical diffusion of information would be useful for some readers.
 






Last poster your point is well taken however when seeking a new position (especially somebody looking for a start in medical) you need to know if you can be sucessful. Yes you are going to be expected to sell, yes you are going to have to work hard, etc... I dont care how great of a salesperson you think you are, some products just dont sell or are extremely difficult to sell (this product) and are just not worth the move. For a first job in medical this could get ugly and start your career the wrong way. Not making a single dollar and a short stint on the resume with little success.
 






Anonymous said:
Last poster your point is well taken however when seeking a new position (especially somebody looking for a start in medical) you need to know if you can be sucessful. Yes you are going to be expected to sell, yes you are going to have to work hard, etc... I dont care how great of a salesperson you think you are, some products just dont sell or are extremely difficult to sell (this product) and are just not worth the move. For a first job in medical this could get ugly and start your career the wrong way. Not making a single dollar and a short stint on the resume with little success.
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Previous poster can you please elaborate more. what questions/concerns would you bring to the hiring manager?

If someone can break down why this new technology is a difficult sale to orthos, please explain. I'm seeking to break into medical but certainly not desperate.
 






To answer above question, this product is a hemostasis device sold into procedures which docs have been doing just fine with no hemostasis device for decades. It is an unnecessary gadget. Docs control bleeding now in a total knee for instance by placing a tourniquette so the surgical field is almost bloodless anyway. It probably does have a shot in total hips because you can't use a tourniquette there and the arevery bloody. But in short, blood is not as big a concern to an orthopod who just wipes the field for visualization. Can't really speak to post-op benefits but I do know a little rubber drain is way less expensive than a device. So the previous posters are saying they think you'd have an uphill fight trying to sell a product there isn't a clear need for, on top of being new to medical.
 






Anonymous said:
would this still be decent way to break into medical, coming from B2B?
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honestly, I don't think so. Not a strong enough product line. Look at Ethicon or Covidien as an entry-level candidate (I know you have B2B experience, not slamming
you there, just mean entry-level in medical). The give you a lot of training and support and the products are easier to sell. The training for this company is only a week...not long enough if you're not already knowlegable about the procedures.
Tough way to start, could end badly.
 






Anonymous said:
To answer above question, this product is a hemostasis device sold into procedures which docs have been doing just fine with no hemostasis device for decades. It is an unnecessary gadget. Docs control bleeding now in a total knee for instance by placing a tourniquette so the surgical field is almost bloodless anyway. It probably does have a shot in total hips because you can't use a tourniquette there and the arevery bloody. But in short, blood is not as big a concern to an orthopod who just wipes the field for visualization. Can't really speak to post-op benefits but I do know a little rubber drain is way less expensive than a device. So the previous posters are saying they think you'd have an uphill fight trying to sell a product there isn't a clear need for, on top of being new to medical.
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This device is a bovie with a saline drip, thats it! While it may protect tissue and reduce bloodloss intra-op, it does nothing to reduce bloodloss in the post-op setting. Orthos are still putting in drains for a day or so in the post-op setting. If I was selling this I would target Orthos that stopped using drains post-op, they may give you a shot.

For a first medial job I would stay away. Ask yourself why they are willing to hire somebody without medical experience. No offense to you but reps already in medical, especailly reps that sell in the OR want nothing to do with this. Think about that for a minute. You cant get reps that know the OR, know the docs etc, to sell a product. Why is that? Hope this helps.
 






Anonymous said:
For a first medial job I would stay away. Ask yourself why they are willing to hire somebody without medical experience. No offense to you but reps already in medical, especailly reps that sell in the OR want nothing to do with this. Think about that for a minute. You cant get reps that know the OR, know the docs etc, to sell a product. Why is that? Hope this helps.
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This person makes a very good point and I would listen. I once took a shaky job because I wanted to relocate so badly that I made a reckless decision. I was out of work six month later and now have to explain it for the rest of my career. Thankfully the rest of my resume was strong enough to save me. But I think this would be risky for an experienced OR rep with contacts. Not saying it stinks and couldn't be done, just saying it's a big gamble for a rep new to medical.
And as the above poster mentioned...why would they hire someone with no experience? I can assure you they wouldn't unless they had no option. Just my thoughts. I'd wait for something else if I were new to device. You want to be sure you can succeed.
 






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