Should Your Device Share a Sales Bag With Other Products?

Yes, when the products go to the same physicians and don't compete with each other. A startup rep who carries only one product has to justify every visit with that one product. Give that rep three or four products that belong in the same cases, and every call is worth more to the doctor and to you.

Why does a shared bag help a device startup?

Because you are calling on the same doctors anyhow. If you sell a mechanical thrombectomy device, the physicians you see are the same ones who would use a self-expanding vascular stent from another young company. Two separate sales teams calling on the same people is expensive for everyone.

A shared bag does three things:

• It spreads the cost. The territory, the rep and the travel are paid for by several products instead of one.
• It gives you a reason to be there. Other products in the bag give your rep a reason to be in front of the doctors you need, even on days your product isn't the topic.
• It gives you more shots on goal. The rep has something useful to talk about on every visit.

Which products belong together?

Keep the bag in one lane, and never put competing products in it. If I had a stent, I would want to sell balloons and guide wires next to it. The rule is simple: same physicians, same procedures, no overlap.

A good bag usually mixes price points. You might pair a device that sells for five or six thousand dollars a case with a crossing device at a couple thousand, plus commodity items like balloons and guide wires. Those commodity items can even be white-labeled through a contract manufacturer.

Look at large companies, too. Big manufacturers sometimes have products their own teams are ignoring. I have heard of portfolios with 25 product lines nobody was selling. Those can be a source of complementary products for a focused team.

I would keep it to three or four products in each clinical space. Past that, the bag becomes a catalog and the rep stops being an expert in anything.

What can go wrong with a shared bag?

Focus. Reps tend to sell whatever is easiest and pays them the most. If your product takes work to adopt, it is always competing with the next shiny object in the same bag. This is the main reason distributor and 1099 arrangements disappoint startups: you have very little influence over what they actually do every day.

If you share a bag, put structure around it. Agree on how time is split, require activity to be logged in the CRM by product, and review adoption in each account, not just total sales. Agree on priorities up front, so every company in the bag knows what it is getting.

What happens when one product in the bag gets acquired?

This is one of the quiet advantages. When a buyer acquires a startup, they usually don't want its sales force. They lift the technology and move it into their own team. In a shared bag, the reps stay and keep selling the other products, so the relationships with those physicians don't scatter. You stay in a constant sales motion in that specialty instead of rebuilding from zero with every new company.

Where should I start?

• List the physicians and procedures your product touches.
• Write down the other products those physicians use in the same cases that don't compete with yours.
• Talk to the companies behind them about sharing reps or a sales partner.
• Set CRM rules so you can see time and activity for your product specifically.