welcome to sultans of spine our goal is to connect welcome to sultans of spine i'm your host jamil pendleton our goal is to connect you the audience with surgeons leadership and key stakeholders for this space in medical device i'm honored and privileged to welcome our guest shannon mays district sales manager for northern florida jan's been in the medical device industry for over 15 years with number of different positions leadership and sales and shannon i'm so excited to to talk to you about specifically your path and where you see this industry going but before that hey thanks so much for carving out some time and welcome to the show jay jay thank you so much for the opportunity man it's it's awesome to see you i i hope that we can see each other in person soon uh but you know i appreciate the opportunity man thank you for reaching out you better and i'd like that yeah i mean i think that's happening soon sooner than we think if if your may uh is any is any if your travel schedule is anything close to mine then then it's about to pick up yeah yeah i'm excited for sure for sure you know what what i like to do is just try to take people a little bit behind the scenes right and this is one of the fastest developing spaces in medical sales with the advent of ai data robotics right all things that that that are prevalent in your in your territory in your in your neck of the woods so to speak so and one of the things that that i feel is going to separate this podcast from all the other ones out there is that we're inside it we're living it breathing it and it's something that is a a hallmark of our character and who we are uh but also you know i think one of the most important things that i've learned is the art of listening and connecting with others and so i'm just the reason for launching this after doing two podcasts as a guest i recognize that why not connect with other individuals in the industry like yourself shannon so just as a backdrop of why we're here and it's it's almost like a a peak under the drape so to speak and inside the the uh the minds of people that are that are leading charge in in our growing industry a little peek under the hood right under the hood absolutely so look i'm i want to just make this more like a conversation shannon and you know similarly to to to any of our conversations in the past just just have a discussion about about you about your your thoughts on the industry your path in in where we're going so sure why don't you if you wouldn't mind how did you get started in the industry um maybe taking us back to and i see that you're you were a d1 college athlete you played soccer which is my favorite sport i grew up playing and i would love to hear about that your path in college and then just kind of how you started yeah so it's interesting i get a number of calls and people reaching out on linkedin and you know college students and and you know just various different people that are asking similar questions and they're on this journey uh that i was on you know over 20 years ago um but you know my path you know especially in college i didn't really know what i wanted to do or what i wanted to be when i grew up right um i i always had a business focus i looked at you know commercial real estate and and financial services i was sort of leaning towards that i really didn't even understand that medical devices existed i didn't know that that was a thing right you always hear about pharmaceutical sales and things like that but um i was introduced to medical devices um by my my former this guy was my high school soccer coach so after um after my senior year um he left teaching he was an environmental science teacher and also coached the soccer team he left teaching and went into pharmaceutical sales and worked for pfizer and then he eventually made his way to medtronic and in the spine division so him and i kept in contact over the years um he reached out to me i was um you know he reached out to me while i was in grad school and said hey um i want you to come and take a look at what i do uh i want you to check this out and and maybe there's an opportunity for a career path for you now the reason why he said this is a just a nice guy he's from you know southern guy from alabama he told me that he went to his national sales meeting and everybody that he saw looked like him right and i didn't really understand the you know what that meant or the complexities of that at the time but he felt that there were there was a need um to have a different perspective and some diversity in the field for me it was just cool i i wanna you know i'll check out what you're doing because i'm looking at different job opportunities but he felt uh there was a higher level of impact for for having me uh potentially join the organization wow how prophetic right i mean you look at today's the landscape and and how companies are embracing diversity and um you know i look at you and your career path and um you know for me i'm colorblind right you you you deserve every bit of every opportunity that you you've gotten from my perspective shannon but it's also really cool to see uh people like your old coach realizing that and and taking the initiative to make make a change yeah it's really interesting right because that was 15 years ago and you know fast forward to today and you know that's there's still impact in in that story and and kind of you know his decisions at the time to even invite me to the party so um i you know i interviewed with medtronic or with him i so let me back up i actually went on that ride um we we spent some time in the operating room it's my first time in in an or um as a i don't even remember what the case was it may have been a t-lift but it seemed to be a very challenging high intense case the surgeon was a challenging um you know it was was a challenging customer had had some challenges during this case and you know this is you know during the days where there was a lot of yelling and screaming and throwing and things like that right that would happen in the rooms that people may not be aware of but it still happens yeah some places but you know uh after the case you know i i didn't eat you know we didn't have time to eat you know i just wasn't used to that so but after the case i sat back reflected on the experience and i said this was awesome right the surgeon really relied on on my former high school soccer coach uh for his expertise within the case i thought that was really cool um i also thought it was cool that he didn't have my soccer coach didn't have to go to an office right his day was dynamic he was in his car we were moving going to different hospitals um so those things were really cool and i also um felt that there was a higher level of impact that he was having on his career to patients and and and um you know uh medical technology in general so i thought that was really cool um good one no please keep going yeah so um so then you know i i was offered an opportunity to be his what we call an associate sales rep at the time i could not take the opportunity because i was still in school so uh the hiring manager uh i will give him a shout out his name is chris ryan he's uh one of the you know still a leader in spine great guy um he redirected me to a program called the apex program within the organization so um the apex program was basically an onboarding program that chose five people nationally to join the organization do rotations throughout our spine business learn the ins and outs of spine um and i was fortunate enough to be one of these folks chosen after uh you know a long long interviews and panel interviews and executive interviews i was chosen do you have any idea how many people went for those jobs um i was i was told a lot you know a couple hundred people yeah don't be don't be modest man congratulations on that because five out of a big number is is is unique and i mean look at you now so so i fooled somebody yeah yeah exactly i'm still full of people now right yeah well yeah if we could just pause there you touched on two things that are so near and dear to me and how i grew my territory which are being extremely valuable to everybody in the room but the surgeon is happy with the ship right and for you to see have the acuity to recognize that that certainly is extremely reliant and on your mentor and your former soccer coach which i love that he came from sports and and we'll talk about that in a second sure uh but but that's that's incredible and to serve that role to help that patient you mentioned patience and i've been doing this long enough to know that it has to be about the patient they are at the center of the wheel right and we're all just focused on that wheel so to speak the patient-centric way which is embedded into our mission is the only way and it's it just it's great to connect with other like-minded individuals like yourself shannon that have that same mentality yeah well all right so thank you no i appreciate that i think that if your mentality is not patient focused you'll be exposed at some point in this industry right that's that's just my mentality and you know the reason why you are able to develop a career in this industry is because of trust right and and our surgeons their their entire focus is their patience and their practice so um the way that you're able to gain traction and gain business in this in this industry is the surgeons will trust you uh to be a part of their surgical team uh you know and to help them with their patient so it has to be patient first it has to be patient first and therein lies the a challenge for many because with trust comes commitment and you have to earn that trust sometimes it takes years sometimes it's it's not let me back up a second trust takes years to build in seconds to destroy and for sure sometimes when you get to the stage where you have other people working with you whether it be associates or clinical specialists or enabling technology individuals they are a representative of you and your brand as it relates to the rep or the interoperative consultant in the room and so it's very critical and very important for people to understand that this is a big time commitment trust is hard to build relationships are hard to keep in a very competitive space like medical device sales particularly in spinal robotics yeah this isn't a this isn't a job this isn't a career this is a lifestyle right and and you become a part of that surgical team you become a protector of your of your surgeons your the staff you want to protect them from from the noise of industry from the noise of people that you're not sure you can trust right so um you know that because that becomes a part of the process for sure did you ever have any difficulty so fast forward to when you you know you have your own dirt did you ever have any difficulty establishing relationships or that trust that that we know is so important i i don't know if i ever had challenges with the trust part the relationships you know where everybody's human you're always going to have some people that interact with you better than others um you know this industry is competitive right we have a number of people that are similar to me that are buying for the trust of of our clients and some may have a leg up above me or or somebody else and um you know that's just the way of the world but in terms of trust i i don't i certainly hope that you know surgeon customers uh always trusted me right that was that was really that's my brand and that's my brand butter is that i'm always gonna tell the truth even if my product may not be the best solution i will tell my customers that and that develops that trust over time that's exactly right because it's about the patient yes about you or i the company that we represent that's right no that's beautiful thank you for sharing that let's let's move into your new role and i'm interested to hear about that because having left a sales rep roll into into sales leadership and management myself you know i have a path but everybody's path is different so walk me through uh you spent some time in the ambulatory surgery space and then now you're you're managing a team walk walk the audience through you know how that went and and what you've learned yeah so i was you know uh at one point in my career i actually left medtronic and started my own business i was a distributor i distributed spinal implants um you know i look at my career and i think about it as different opportunities to develop different skill sets right so as a distributor principal i i had to learn how to run a business i had to learn contracting i had to learn all these little things that medtronic would take care of in the background that that some folks aren't aware of and frankly i had to learn how to sell right because um there's a there's a there's a large benefit to having big blue on your back you know you get instant credibility um if you're hired by medtronic frankly and um you know as a distributor i was kind of a lone wolf out there and i was you know working with some smaller companies and i had to really learn how to to sell right like that was my training ground um and i left medtronic under great circumstances so i was fortunate enough to be asked to come back and i i came back and um you know once i came back it was easy for me because i had the best technology in the world i had awesome support and and leadership so once i came back it seemed like a very simple task you know ahead of me i'm granted man ear ear because it's eerily similar to my my own path if i may i i spent a couple of years my first two years as an associate for medtronic and left for invasive spent seven years there left on i would say decent terms some may argue that but they they did hire me back in a leadership role and i 100 agree with you you mentioned something about credibility with the name and the brand of big blue or of any big company yeah that is a great thing but it can also be a crutch yes right and what i'm what i mean by that is you can't rely just on the brand because if any if you've done any sort of studying of the sales process or listening to any of my silly videos on linkedin people buy you they buy from you and you have to learn how to develop yourself as a salesperson as a rep in the room or whatever role you're in and you know i think that you learn that during your distributor days i learned how to do that during early nova days and i dropped from that every single day now as i'm trying to lead and compel others both internal to our organization as well as certain facing reps in the field and their managers how we can grow market share yeah because we're at a critical crossroads we are for sure and i honestly i think that my experience leaving medtronic it's made me more more valuable to the to the organization right like those experiences make you um you know a more uh give you a more diverse skill set so you know leaving medtronic i think it was one of the best things that i could have done because i came back as a different person and then you know i had some success in that sales rep role and then i i made a transition to you know our our ase business and kind of developing that strategy which gave me some new muscles and different muscles than i had before right um and and so the transition to the my current role as a as a district sales manager was it's been very it's it's new to me still right but it's been really simple and it feels just very natural and easy to me um because i've had all these different diverse um opportunities to learn different things and and bring that to this to this role so the transition for me has been awesome i have a fantastic team uh we're always looking to to grow and and find a new talent but but i'm so pleased with with the team that i have they've embraced me with open arms so so that transition has been easy for me because i it's not me going straight from an individual contributor role to a manager role i had a you know some time away in a different role as well so that transition has been really nice for me that's great to hear and you know one thing i wanted to clarify i don't want anyone out there to to think that you and i are advocating you need to leave the company in order to get ahead while that work well that was both of our paths there are a lot of things underway that i that i'm focused on and working with our teams internally as well as some third party to you know dive into the build model and the development of our own people because i think that's critical to our culture as we grow and as we become more competitive that jeff martha our ceo talks about and i know that's a license for guys like you and i to to be aggressive and to to go out there and and do things a little bit differently right and think big play small be nimble those are his words jeff's words and and i love them i wrote them down when he said them and i'll never forget them it i i feel that the medtronic today and i'd love to get your your take on this is completely different than the medtronic that i left in 2010 what are your what are you so i left in 2012 right so my presumption is that we both had that those same feelings um about the organization which is partly why we left right we were just i just i feel like medtronic has all the resources and the capabilities to to really be impactful and at one point it just didn't feel like we were going in the right direction right um now i i feel very different and i tell a lot of people that i tell the people that i work with excuse me that you know this is the most exciting time you know of my career within the organization right we are we're at the precipice of really turning turning the corner and becoming a medical technology company i've been saying this for quite some time to you know to my customers that i don't you know we don't i'm not really into selling widgets to you i'm into selling an entire suite of technology uh applications to you and we are really aggressively moving in that direction and that's exciting to me it is and you mentioned something you know i feel like we and i've actually heard our our leadership use this exact phrase within in certain certain meetings that i was fortunate enough to be a part of we were playing defense you were sitting back and losing share i mean and you're an athlete as am i and you you know what happens when you don't when you change the way you play a game different results will happen so if you try to protect the lead likely gonna get scored on and now we're playing offense we're being aggressive the acquisitions of the zoro robotics of titan spine and the nanotechnology and most recently of medicrea are three huge investments in the see it for cst our cranial and spinal technologies division in a very short period of time and so that's jeff martha brett wall jacob paul our leadership playing offense being aggressive and wanting to take share that we feel we can help our surging customers as you said to utilize this new suite of technology again to treat the patient better yeah and jay i i have a couple of my team members calling me today and i always tell these guys you know it's our responsibility to push the organization right if we're if we are complacent and happy with everything then we're not i don't think we're doing what we should be doing we have a responsibility as an organization to be better and to really push this industry so um yeah i completely agree with you i'm so happy with what our leadership team is doing you know carlton weatherby is is in charge of our spinal business as well now which is it just provides a different dynamic um so i i just couldn't be more excited for where we're going i can't imagine what the next five years is gonna is gonna look like but this is just this is going to be fun it is you mentioned carlton i i i could not be more excited about his leadership as our vp and gm and lynnea right they're both taking us into the next level where we need to go in terms of our our vision our products our messaging as a company as an organization and uh i'm thrilled to be a part of it and have a seat at the table so yeah likewise let's talk man i just i gotta dig into the athletics piece and not to not to be or sound like a jock but there's a reason and i've got a video that i'll i'll maybe launching one day soon that i uh that i talk about this but there's a reason why military and athletics there is a reason why military and athletes find their self into this specific space of orthopedics and medical device sales and my thought is it to be an athlete and you were at a high level d1 soccer captain of of of the soccer team yeah no what's that yeah i was i was lucky there but that's a big responsibility and that's leadership and these whether it's military or athletic these people are able to compartmentalize right and multitask in the midst of the fire whether it's the game or war right real things that are happening and that is trend a translatable skill can you can you talk about that a little bit because i didn't play d1 ball i'd love to hear your thoughts on do you draw from those experiences today and or just maybe understand that a little bit yeah i know absolutely like uh sports has been formative for me in my entire life right you know i've played in team sports my entire life so having a team dynamic is natural to me um you know the challenges that i experienced even in college you know that that builds some scar tissue and some resilience right so i think sales specifically is a is a is a tough field right you have to have a lot of resilience to get up every morning and get back out there to be told no that's right and um i think you know that resilience that's been built up in me from my sporting time the competitive nature that i have in me uh super important um you know with me choosing this career right i heard about i started doing my research on on the career uh once i was started to get brought into uh into the picture there and i knew it was a competitive competitive career i knew it was hard i knew there it could be rewarding but right when i knew how tough it was i wanted it right i wanted to prove something to other people and be in the toughest career um at the biggest best company in the best division at the time that that that's where that's where i want to be it's awesome yeah yeah and look i i have so many thoughts in so many different uh places i mean we i feel like we can talk for hours unfortunately we both have jobs to do there's there's hard stops as i wrote about in my blog this morning right there's hard stops and uh we we we got other things to get to so in the interest of the next uh 20 minutes or so what do you see you mentioned uh you know becoming a medical technology company at the forefront of that or what do you what are the trends what are the trends that you see whether it's robotics or navigation still a very in my opinion uh enabling and and awesome piece of technology that we that we own where do you see trends i mean where if we were to sit down at in three years from now yeah what is what does surgery look like what are surgeons interested in kind of walk me through your thought process yeah well i will say that we're certainly moving more towards the digital age of surgery and you know uh we we are going to be tech focused we you know medical technology and medical devices in particular has not really had the opportunity to to to get the silicon valley effect yet and i think that's where we're going and and with that being said i think it would it will allow for a different person and different skill set to be involved in this industry we need different minds and different people than than have traditionally been involved in the business so i think that's where we're going right so maybe a guy like me there's a place for me but there's also a place for somebody else that has a different level of skills skill and understands coding and technology right things like that that can also be a sales person i think that's where you know i would like to see us go and just have a different diversity of experience uh within our business that's where we're going quickly i love it i think you're spot on and and what's interesting for me in this new role i get i get pitched a lot from these companies that are wanting to work with medtronic in some way shape or form sure and uh you know as as as i see it you're 100 right there's going to be destruction continue disruption to our processes and our own internal workflows and how we work together as industry and how industry is going to merge with the treatment options and the technology that exists today to help those patients treat their to help those surgeons treat their patients in new innovative ways i mean and the surgeons wanted to jay right the surgeons are are tech savvy and you know they want we want better outcomes for the patients so i think technology can get us there big data can can make us better much better informed about the decisions that we make so it's it's incumbent upon us to harness that data and harness the technology to make our products and our solutions better that's that's just that's our responsibility again yeah i agree what what what else is there anything else you'd like to talk about i mean i've got a ton of questions and thoughts but but this is this is my time with shane and i wanted to be okay we you got everything you wanted to say out there on the on yeah no i would just say that you know i'm you know i'm in a new leadership uh role uh within the organization frankly i i've been a leader my entire life i'm just so fortunate and happy to to have the team that i have i i mean i literally love these people it's only been a couple of weeks here but you know a lot of them i've known uh throughout my career from a distance but it's been so awesome to to really take on that mantle as a as a leader within the organization and um yeah i'm just so excited for the future of the company i just this is just it couldn't be a better place to be and i know a lot of other folks want to be uh within this company and and i know you're gonna you're helping to work on some of that as well yeah but but yeah i just can't reiterate how exciting it is for us to literally be in a time where spine is changing right orthopedics is changing with digital surgery and technology that we just haven't harnessed in the past so i'm just excited i mean we can talk about a lot of different things but um where medtronic is going not just from a technological standpoint but also a cultural shift is going to be massive yeah the cultural shift has been an interesting one right i mean jeff martha's talked about that we've gone through a restructure there's some still some moving parts yeah as i look to the landscape i'm excited about how we're working with certain customers in new ways right and we talked about business travel picking up i am really excited about a future spine leaders course which is fast approaching i think we're about a month out have you been hearing a lot of buzz in in in your marketplace i mean it is in florida so yeah for sure i mean you know the with the pandemics sort of settling down and you know access to vaccines people are excited to to get back to it but you know we've also throughout this process we are nimble enough to figure out different ways to engage with the customers right so we were able to you know zoom is now a thing and it's not just a thing it's a prominent thing uh you know also different technologies to to do remote learning so we were able to to be as nimble as we needed to be uh at the time so i look i think that uh in person is awesome but i think because we have these digital technologies we can engage with more people and and really spread the message around the world which is great right it's great for everybody we don't have to be there and absolutely properly yeah yeah it's gonna be interesting like i completely agree with you like i don't there's so much efficiency gain from and and the technology's there whether it be you know just being able to talk like this on zoom or just just the ability to share screens and presentations and and you know whether it be teams or whatever you're using to collaborate google it it's just such a an interesting time um where we have all these tools and all these great things to help us be the most effective and and go together we were we were foreign right we were forced to do this yes i think it was you know it was a good thing because would we would we be as dynamic with zoom and some of these technologies and virtual reality and some of these ar trainings would you be able to do that or would we have forced ourselves to go there uh if it weren't for the pandemic i don't i don't know yeah we've made a change i don't want to go back like as jeff would say i don't want to go get back to where we were no i don't think we can and i think you know it's been interesting like from the hiring aspect right and you know i was a hiring manager for the western us for the last couple of years and you know i hired two people during a pandemic never met them just felt like i knew them based on zoom and i was talking to one of my good friends in software and he hired 300 people just think about the difference so companies have adapted adopted this new way of communication and i long for the days of regional sales meetings national sales meetings i do truly will get back to those because it's extremely important as you know to you know be there in person there's nothing the efficiency gain is great but it doesn't replace the face-to-face right i think where where we are now is we're gonna find a happy medium and a balance between the two yeah for sure absolutely well man i i certainly uh have enjoyed our conversation um you know if people want to find you and and and learn more about shannon you know where would you where would you direct them where would you say linkedin's probably the best uh medium to define me my name is shannon mays m-a-y-s uh you'll find me on there i'm fairly active on linkedin so that's probably the best place to find me reach out i'm happy to provide any guidance or any assistance do your homework as as jay and i would say right you know also do your research it's a this is a hard and challenging field to be in everybody from you know zimmer biomet uh medtronic abbott's invasive johnson johnson everybody that's within these within those walls has worked really hard to get there they've done their research and you know nobody is is finding jobs for them you've got to do it yourself and and really get out there and work um so yeah i'm happy to provide any guidance um but again do your do your due diligence in your work first for sure absolutely i couldn't agree more i mean i say that a lot but it's very true um i've spent some time with some individuals that haven't prepared and when i compare that to to the time that i spend with individuals that have prepared and know why they want to do this and no medtronic or whatever company that they're interested in those those conversations go a lot differently and the follow-up and the potential opportunity is night and day so it becomes a filter honestly right like if you come prepared it's just like if if i if you're not prepared for this conversation how would you ever be prepared to have a conversation with a clinician exactly yeah i think it becomes a filter unfortunately for people no i get it and look people are looking for guidance and direction it's just bandwidth becomes a challenge you and i have full-time jobs families and things like that and so you know at the end of the day happen to point somebody in the right direction but this is a difficult industry to break into again i don't know why there it needs to be a robbery this is it's not something that people need to think about breaking into although it might be difficult if you do your homework if you do your research and you know exactly what you want to do and why you want to do it right then i encourage you to apply right we have a great career website a portal that has all our available jobs i'm not the guy to guide you to do those things right i'm not going to teach you how to do the homework or the research but if you're a spine rep and you have experience in this industry those are the people that i'm interested in talking to and shannon i got to tell you just in this last let's call it two-month period i've had so many great discussions with people just like you and i who are like-minded patient-centric focus develop the territory and and are in a good place with their company but they're intrigued or they're excited about the same momentum that you and i saw that caused us to come back to medtronic and could not be happier to be you know a person to introduce the new medtronic to our competition quite frankly because if everything works the way that that you and i think that it will and that jeff is leading us towards we're going to need more people we're going to need a lot more help yeah for sure and even you know those folks that are looking at medtronic uh whether they're in the industry outside you know all i can reiterate is you know continue to to diversify your skill set right show up with different skills and different uh different ways of doing things that that's how you separate yourself from other candidates right right and and even you know our movement to to this med tech world where a lot of other companies are are taking that that jump into med tech we need different people with different skill sets so um you know don't be afraid to to continue to learn that's that's the only way you survive in this industry is that you continue to learn and develop yourself and and don't uh don't fear becoming a different person if you were the the person that that stayed away from technology in the past you can change that tomorrow right and really embrace it um so that that's that's what i would leave you with is is continue to learn diversify your skill set and and there's there's always going to be a place for you in this industry well said you know and to wrap up take any opportunity to learn right i know of a colleague of mine good friend who spent two years unpaid interning for an orthopedics company just to shadow the rep this is back before vendor credentialing he was in the hospital he was watching observing cases shadowing them turning over trays doing all the grunt work just to learn and you think about that level of commitment so he was juggling two jobs just to just to get get in and you know you talk to different people who go whether it be i spent four years in ibm getting sales experience b2b sales experience it doesn't really matter but i had sales experience that i was able to apply to this industry and everybody's path is going to be unique and different but what i'll leave the audience with is just gain knowledge and be a sponge in whatever capacity that is take it you're not you may not get that dream job right out the gates but we're going to get is the knowledge and the experience that you could then apply and leverage to that career and that that job that ultimately you're looking for absolutely yeah couldn't agree more well hey brother great to see you we look forward to shaking your hand in person and uh we will uh we'll talk again soon thanks again for joining sultans of spine this has been copy with a closer shannon mays m-a-y-s out of florida look him up on linkedin follow what he's doing he's going to do some amazing things for this company in the very near future already is thanks again shannon thank you brother appreciate you
2021-07-07