Sales Leadership and “The Point Guard Approach” with Jeremy Laynor #008

Jeremy Laynor is the Senior Vice President of Global Sales for Providence Medical Technology, a leading medical device company specializing in posterior cervical fusion. Jeremy has been leading sales teams for nearly 20-years and is also the author of, “The Point Guard Approach”. A brilliant, straight forward read focusing on the analogy of basketball and how to succeed in business.

During our interview, Jeremy talks about

the level of training that they provide their sales team,
he shares their approach to driving success through their Indirect/Distributor Partnerships
he walks us through his experience of selling and leading through an acquisition, and
of course we break down the book.

#salesconsultantpodcast #meddevicesales #leadership #basketball

Time Stamps:

[:33] Coming up within the ranks and being promoted to a leadership position, inheriting a sales team as a new leader from the outside, and inheriting an organization where he managed managers.

[2:43] Explains what Providence Medical Technology (PMT) does and details his primary areas of focus as Senior Vice President of Global Sales.

[5:39] Talks about the level of training that they provide their sales team in operating rooms utilizing cadavers to become proficient with the procedure and the PMT spinal system. They also establish partnerships with surgeons and faculty to bridge the learning gap.

[6:47] Breaks down the PMT Go-To-Market (GTM) structure and their two (2) core Routes-to-Market (RTM): Direct Sales Org & Indirect (Distributor Partnerships)

[7:20] Shares their approach to driving success through their Indirect/Distributor Partnerships. What type of Distributors they partner with and how they enable them to be successful.

[11:26] Walks us through his experience of selling and leading through an acquisition where the company he was with got acquired by Medtronic.

[19:00] Jeremy has been leading sales teams/orgs for nearly 20 years and explains what he attributes his long lasting track record to considering a lot of people in similar roles rarely reach his level of consistency and longevity.

[24:00] Answers the question: “How did your parents impact your career and your approach to leadership?”

[26:26] I get Jeremy’s perspective on all the layoffs in the news and the horror stories we hear about with layoffs not being handled in a human manner. Shares his experience of laying people off during covid.

[29:18] Talks about the opportunity for salespeople who have been laid off in tech to move into medical device sales. “Talent always wins” he says, but he also shares the challenges in making this kind of move being that the knowledge and skill level has to be pretty high to become a med device sales professional.

[35:08] We get into the book he wrote, “The Point Guard Approach” and we start by diving into the importance of effective internal and external communication as an individual and as an organization with consistent feedback loops. I read a passage from the book to start it off and ask him what it means to him.

[39:34] Describes an analogy for ‘looking at the ball while you dribble’ which he essentially equates to having vision in the market. “Get your head up”, he says.

[41:05] Jeremy shares the ‘why behind writing the book and building a personal brand.

[44:49] We discuss how sports analogies come under a lot of heat on social media for promoting the ‘bro culture’ so we explain how all the principles from his book still apply irrespective of your chosen discipline.

[47:36] We dive into how important it is to ‘practice’ and more importantly we talk about how Jeremy has operationalized ‘practicing’ within his sales organization.

[54:09] Answers the question: “How do you get better as a sales leader?”