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Is your sales process aligned with the needs of today’s quickly evolving healthcare marketplace?
For about 90% of healthcare equipment and technology dealers, the answer is no. Here’s why that is, what you can do about it, and how a subscription- and payment-based approach to sales can speed your sales process, strengthen your cash flow, and accelerate your company’s growth.
Is Your Sales Approach Right for a
Changing Healthcare Marketplace?
How Subscriptions and Payments Can Power Faster Growth
Cloud-based software helped break the ice by turning annual licensing transactions into an always-on, relationship-powered solutions.
Here’s where it gets a lot more interesting: only 11% of all equipment and technology sales teams lead with a payment or offer subscription-based solutions.
We researched to find out why, and here’s what we found:
Trust Is Lacking
It's More Work
Big Training Gaps
Old Attitudes Prevail
“I’ve been burned so many times by our finance partner, I’m concerned that financing will…
If you don’t understand it, you’re not likely to sell it. Most healthcare sales teams are trained…
“I was successful building this company by cold calling and never had to lead with…
So those are a few of the biggest reasons so many equipment and technology sellers don’t lead with a payment. But what if you did?
Businesspeople suffer from decision fatigue just as much as anyone else, and more subscriptions mean fewer decisions to make.
Payments are popular – nearly three quarters of companies pay for equipment over time, and they’re coming to see the value of treating these investments and others as perpetual, rather than intermittent.
“I’ve been burned so many times by our finance partner, I’m concerned that financing will actually cost me a new business opportunity.” This 20-year veteran of equipment sales isn’t wrong to feel this way. But healthcare industry customers still want and need payment options. The problem here isn’t the financing – it’s the company chosen to provide the financing.
“It’s easier not to sell financing. There are so many paperwork items to go through and ask for, it just complicates everything.” This 10-year salesperson is right that it’s always easier to sell a less complex solution. But if you’re not meeting the customer need, you won’t have to worry about process at all. Someone else will win the business.
If you don’t understand it, you’re not likely to sell it. Most healthcare sales teams are trained to be experts on complex equipment and technology. They’re not trained on how to sell using payments. As a result, they mention payments last or not at all.
“I was successful building this company by cold calling and never had to lead with a payment.” This is a real quote from a senior sales executive. There’s no doubt he’s correct. But the world he built his success on doesn’t look the same today. If healthcare equipment and technology sales leaders don’t eagerly adopt new ways to go to market that align with how today’s customers make decisions, opportunities will be lost.
Is It Time to Change the Way You Think About Payments?
If you could boost your sales an average of 37% and increase the speed at which you close sales by an average of 42%, why wouldn’t you?
It may be time to ask some hard questions about your healthcare equipment and technology sales approach, as well as evaluate your partnerships, training, and the attitudes that surround how you go to market.
Let's Talk
To talk over your needs and how we can develop a custom finance program that powers bigger healthcare equipment and technology sales that close faster, contact us today.
The opportunity is waiting. LEAF can help you leverage it with:
Resources for packaging comprehensive healthcare hardware/software/service solutions with payments
Training to shorten the sales cycle and increase deal size with financing
Marketing support to boost engagement and drive action
As-a-service/subscription financing to build predictable revenues and stronger relationships
In a recent survey of over 5,000 equipment and technology buyers,
69% involved more than five people in the purchase decision.
It’s Not Just About Selling More – It’s Also About Selling Faster
Sales cycles are often lengthy, and they’re getting longer, especially in the healthcare industry where acquisitions typically require multiple reviews and approvals. Companies are deploying more matrixed decision making, with buying groups filling a dozen or more presentation room chairs where they once designated a single person or two to make the final call. While more people may yield better decisions, it certainly doesn’t make the purchasing process shorter.
But one thing does: leading with a payment. In our survey of more than 800 equipment and technology sales teams, those that consistently led with a finance option not only sold more, they also sold faster. Here are some statistics for the healthcare industry as a whole, as well as for common asset types:
42%
37%
Close sales 42% faster
Boost your sales 37%
Instrumentation and Surgical Tools
FF&E
Office Technology
Diagnostic Technology
Health Information Technology
Durable goods
Equipment Type
“It’s easier not to sell financing. There are so many paperwork items to go through and…
Old Attitudes Prevail
There’s a Big Training Gap
It’s More Work
Trust is Lacking
They Aren't Just for Consumers Anymore
Subscriptions are everywhere in the consumer world, and they’re quickly becoming a preferred way for healthcare providers to get what they need to deliver a reliably high standard of patient care. But how did we get from streaming TV to everything-as-a-service? Here are a few reasons why this payment model is so popular with the healthcare industry and other customers:
Subscriptions
Why All This Matters to You
Thanks in part to subscriptions, attitudes toward payments have shifted sharply positive among those who once believed they were an option to turn to only when absolutely necessary. These days, payments have become a preferred way for businesses to get what they need to win opportunities and drive growth.
Dealers that lead with a payment on every proposal sell 37% more
than direct competitors that don't.
Days
Healthcare Industry
% Increase in Sales Velocity
Increase in
Sales Velocity
Sales Cycle
With Payments
Sales Cycle Without Payments
Show Assets
