Evolve Your Success With Samuel Adeyinka

Posted by John Livesay in podcast0 comments

Personal development can affect, boost, and evolve your success to any aspect of your life. It is something one should focus on because you can have the opportunity to make a difference. When he was young, Samuel Adeyinka wanted to be a physician but realized that he could do other things related to medicine. That led him to pursue a career in medical sales. He experienced a lot of setbacks and challenges, which enabled him to give importance to personal development. Now, Samuel started his podcast to let people hear and have more information about the medical sales industry. Join him in this episode as he shares more about his inspiring journey to success.

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Evolve Your Success With Samuel Adeyinka

Our guest is Samuel Adeyinka, who after graduating from the University of California in Riverside with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology, started his medical sales career. Over the next several years, he worked for a variety of biotech and pharmaceutical companies. He then went on to work in various roles, including medical sales development trainer, International Coaching Federation, and a certified coach. He has now started his podcast and Evolve Your Success, which is an organization that delivers digital marketing strategy and training programs to corporations and individuals.

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Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Let’s talk about your own story of origin. Did you know from a young age that you wanted to get into medical sales, or how did that road start for you? Do you have some great Biology teachers in high school or someone in your family?

I think everyone can say this. When it comes to medical sales, you did not know at a young age. This was new to a lot of us, probably for the last several years. I wanted to be a physician when I was younger. I was all about bones rise. I memorized every bone at a young age. I used to go around telling people what bones they had. At least I identify that all the time.

I want to be a physician. I thought I wanted that. That’s what led me to UC Riverside. I enrolled in the Biomed program. I got into that program. In that program, you got to spend some time with some physicians. I got to get a couple of mentors and I got to see what goes on at hospitals. I realized that, as much as I like this field, I want to look into other things related to it. I was not sure I wanted to practice medicine with patients.

I said, “Let me look into something else.” I spent some time working in the lab. Through that experience, I learned about this industry called Medical Sales. I worked with a PhD there, he was working on a diuretic, and he would say, “Sammy, you have a great personality. You understand the medicine. I see you have a big interest in the business. You should look into what manufacturers do for drugs and devices. Check it out and see if you like it.”

[bctt tweet=”Be a resource to your client. ” username=”John_Livesay”]

I looked into that. I looked into high-performance liquid chromatography devices and some pharmaceutical companies. With the pharmaceutical companies, I got my first role, moved out to the desert, and loved it. It was an awesome experience. I performed very well. Right going into it my first year, I had at a time in my life, loving what I was doing, and the rest is history.

When do you say desert, is it Phoenix or Palm Springs?

The desert is in the desert of California. Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indio, those were my stomping grounds, and that is where I originated. That introduced me to the field.

A lot of people who understand science and like to study science are known as a little bit of introverts perhaps. They don’t like to even think of rejection personally, not the personality at all that sales require. When you do find a hybrid of someone who understands science and willing to put themselves out there in a sales environment, it is a magical find.

Usually, there are a lot of personalities like sales. They don’t know the science. I’m sure that combination was, in fact, a huge success. I’m fascinated to see how somebody did suggest it to you. It is amazing how one person in our life can be a major character in our own story of, “Had I not thought about that, I would never have even explored it. I didn’t know it existed.”

When you find something that fits, it is like, “This is what I meant to do.” It is not you are forcing yourself to do it, hate it, and find it awkward or whatever. Let’s talk about it because a lot of people think of pharmaceutical sales. Don’t you have to be a model to do that job because everyone is attractive? It’s crazy. The impressions that people have of the glamour of that job because it is the smartest, the best, and the most attractive, it’s like getting into Harvard or something.

Everyone has this perception that it is a difficult field to get into. You have now taken your expertise in doing it and helping people get into it, which we will talk about for sure later, but I want to get your impressions of it. Were you surprised at how competitive or challenging it was to get into when you first started?

Evolve Your Success: No matter what level of success you’ve reached in your life, you can always evolve it to the next level of success.

I’m going to be honest with you. I wasn’t even thinking about that. It’s funny. I didn’t even realize what I was getting into. When I first started, I was trying to develop my sales acumen. I had never been in sales before. I was working in the lab, and it was a high-performance liquid chromatography. We were studying these graphs and preparing liquid chromatography while running the experiments for this diuretic on live testing. That was what I knew and everything I studied in school, which was Biology.

When it came to sales, I didn’t know. I thought I needed to go develop my sales skills. I looked into T-Mobile, and there was a sales position there. A friend of mine said, “These guys teach you how to sell, you make good money, and they can help you with your first career move.” At the same time, I learned about this pharmaceutical opportunity. There was a company that wanted to work with me and I wanted to work there.

I said, “Do I develop my sales acumen at T-Mobile or even out here at a pharmaceutical company?” When anybody hears this, they’re like, “That’s an obvious choice.” At that time, it was not that obvious to me. I went ahead and went into it. I was excited to be in a role that offered that, doing things, selling, being a part of the business with them, and that excited me. Even before that role, I had this little nutraceutical company where I worked with a few providers. We were trying to have this diet nutraceutical product that we were trying to sell, market, and get out there.

It seemed like a sensible position to take on it. I felt I would learn more about what I was doing and get experienced in this new industry. I was not thinking about the challenge of getting in. Honestly, this was several years ago. It was competitive back then, but it was also not as well known. Now everybody knows about medical sales, medical device sales reps, and pharmaceutical sales reps. The average person knows what a drug rep or a medical device rep does. Now all these people want to get into it, and ever since COVID hit, even more so. It has become this very competitive and aggressive industry where you got to be a certain person and put in the work to get a foot in the door.

[bctt tweet=”Be someone your client can rely on.” username=”John_Livesay”]

The need for companies to train people has changed. When you and I were getting into sales, I got into high tech sales and they would put us through a training program, not only on the products but on the actual selling. I remember being videotaped and you should be giving someone your business card within many seconds of meeting them, in case they forget your name.

All those little tips that you don’t think about, emotional intelligence or social skills, especially if you are selling something expensive, there are a lot of people that get involved in the decision, and you are not going to walk out with a yes. You have to call on, in my case, financial people for leasing, a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, or the tech people had to speak to the tech people and solve a problem.

It was a lot of training that was great because once you have an understanding of where things are in the pipeline, as well as where somebody is in their buying decision, you are able to make projections on a much more accurate basis. Without all that experience with somebody guiding you, you are making it up as you go along.

We have seen, without the proper training, how frustrating it can be for someone who does not have that training. How did you come up with the name of Evolve Your Success, which you’ve created now a full-service media and training company for both companies and individuals? I love it because it assumes someone’s already got a level of access, and you’re helping them evolve it.

That has always been important to me. No matter what level of success you have reached in your life, you can always evolve it to the next level of success, and human nature initiates that. If the money is great, you want to work on a personal relationship. If the relationship is great, you want to work on the finances. If all these different parts are great, you want to work on the family.

There is always an aspect of your life that you want to improve, you are either going to step toward that on your own, or something is going to pull you into wanting to develop it. That’s something that I’ve recognized pretty early on in my career. One thing that I loved was personal development. I became a fan of that early on because I had my own personal setbacks that let me see.

There is a way people can experience a personal setback and still get back to performing at a high level. I didn’t understand what that meant. I didn’t know what that meant until I started looking into the work of what personal coaches and personal development coaches do. That’s when I got to learn that no matter what you’re experiencing in life, whether it be a divorce, death, job loss, or whatever’s happening.

There’s a way where you can recalibrate, reevaluate yourself and develop from that place and evolve to even greater success than you have ever experienced. Me going through that developed a passion for me wanting to do that with my own career and help people do it as well. Several years ago, I worked with some personal development companies. I got to see what they do and how they work with people. It was completely inspiring to me. I said, “No matter what I do in this life, I have to remain connected to this work.” I started working with sales reps in all kinds of different industries.

This was passion coaching where I can help someone say, “Let’s look at what you are doing. Let’s look at your opportunities, and let’s help you ramp up your sales.” Honestly, what often happens is we end up working on their personal life. Not directly, but to show up a certain way professionally, you got to have certain things in your pocket personally. That is what would always come out when working with all these people.

Evolve Your Success: Whatever’s happening, there’s a way where you can really recalibrate, reevaluate yourself and develop from that place and evolve to even greater success.

This became a habit. What I noticed through that is a lot of these people also want it to be in the medical sales industry. I’m like, “You have all these people that want to improve their sales, their careers, and realize the value of developing personally. It carried over professionally. You have all these people that want to get into the medical sales space.” I said, “There should be something out there that gives them the opportunity to do so.” That is where Evolve Your Success was birthed, we started helping people create those opportunities, and we have been doing that ever since.

As a story keynote speaker, what I have found is how important it is that we are resilient and how fast we get back up after we get rejected, lose a job or a loved one, divorce, or whatever it is. They were all going to have experiences like that knocked us down. The trick is, how fast do we get back up. A lot of people shake it off fairly quickly, and then you see people two weeks, sometimes, even two months still talking about it. You are like, “You are not in the right mindset to move on. That’s why you’re in a slump.”

The other thing I love about what you do that I’ve noticed myself was when I got hired by a healthcare med-tech company, they wanted a sales keynote speaker to come in and teach their people how to tell stories. One of them had reached out to me during the interview process on LinkedIn. I liked and commented on a couple of his posts. He became my inside salesperson because he was trying to get his team to like and comment on doctors’ posts on LinkedIn.

The fact that I did it, he said, “I knew you were the person that would not try to squeeze that concept in, but you were doing it to sell yourself. I knew that wasn’t a good fit for our company.” The fact that you have used selling based on the science of social media to help people connect with people is important whether you’re selling yourself as we do as speakers or you’re in the medical tech world. A lot of them think, “I have to use social media to develop relationships. I’m going to keep hammering away like everybody else and send a bunch of emails going, can I have an appointment?” Tell us about what you’re doing and what makes your experience unique in this science in social media?

[bctt tweet=”There’s always an aspect of your life that you want to improve. You’re either going to step towards that on your own, or something’s going to pull you into wanting to develop it.” username=”John_Livesay”]

It’s the age we live in right now. Right now, we live in the age of social proof. Any influencers, celebrities, anybody you know the first name of that you don’t directly know, you can probably go online and find some social proof about that person. Anybody you know, you can go online and find some social proof about that person.

In this day and age, it is important to build a brand around yourself because the opportunities to provide value for people are endless. When it comes to social media or online technology, healthcare is the last space to realize the value, and healthcare has finally said, “There is a lot of value here to develop a brand for myself.” Surgeons and specialty providers are realizing that.

If I build a brand on TikTok, Instagram or LinkedIn, I am going to get more patients and get noticed. The good work that I’m putting out there in the world is going to be seen. Whether it’s intentional or not, there is going to be a level of credibility to what I do that people will believe in before they meet me. That applies to everyone, and everyone has the opportunity to do that. It makes you more marketable in the marketplace. If you work for a company and you’re ready to take your skillset to a different level, other companies can easily see the good work you’ve done at that organization and say, “Come work for us. You’re doing excellent.” Even within your own organization.

A lot of times, you’re doing all this good work in your role, and outside of your manager, the leadership has no idea all of the good work you’re doing well, but now you have the opportunity to let that be seen with your brand. The people within your organization are saying, “I didn’t know you were working on that. We want to consider you for this role over here. Let’s have a conversation.” There are so many opportunities.

Personal branding is very important. It’s more important it has ever been. I believe that we’re going to continue to go in that direction. I wanted to help in that transition. My whole thing is about developing other people. That’s what I’m big on. In every role that I’ve had, I’ve tried to focus on doing that, providing value for the customers and colleagues. Anybody I’m working with, I want to train them and help them reach their highest potential. Social branding is a great way to do that as well.

You offer this as a service. You help people optimize their profile, which people don’t even think about how important that is. They go, “I only need to be on LinkedIn if I’m looking for another job.” Wrong. You need to brand yourself on LinkedIn, which could even help you get a promotion. You take that another step further, which is, “Now we’ve got your branding done, but let’s get you to be perceived as a thought leader.” Maybe create some good content.

Think about it this way. You’re someone that understands a lot about your product or service. Let’s be honest. A good sales professional, he or she, understands their disease state, condition, and problem that their customers have better than anyone, even better than their customers. Let’s talk about it. You would have a doctor and he says, “I went to med school. I know more than you.”

It is granted, but I spent all this time, my whole livelihood is built on me, understanding this very specific detail of your breadth of knowledge to help you be even better and provide better quality for your patients. There’s got to be something there. On top of that, I spent all this time talking to your peers that do things differently than you do to give insight on how you practice what you do.

Evolve Your Success: In this day and age, it’s important to build a brand around yourself because the opportunities to provide value for people are endless.

I have friends that are providers, and a lot of them say, “A good representative is someone that I can rely on. It’s someone that I can look to them and depend on their knowledge to help me show up better for my patients.” If you are doing that, why not be seen by the right provider so that they can tap on you to be a resource to them. That is where social branding or being out there also does. It gives your customers another way for them to know that you are this person that can give them all this value and potentially lead to an in-person meeting. You become their real customer, doing business, and they are happy about it.

I talk to people all the time that we have worked with that say, “I met this account through LinkedIn. They saw what I posted about so-and-so and they contacted me. Now we were doing business, and their patients are doing better.” That’s awesome. That’s the beauty of what is happening in this day and age. That is something that I like being a part of.

I was interviewing an optometrist for an upcoming talk I’m giving to an eye care company. He said, “The reps used to be able to bring lunch in, and we would have lunch. They could present and pitch. Now they have to catch us between patients. We give them ten minutes.” Everyone is saying the same thing, “Our products are the best. Here are all our stats,” and then it is forgotten.

He goes, “I’m looking for a sales rep that I can rely on, that’s going to bring their expertise.” They’re looking at hundreds of other optometrist offices, and maybe they see a best practice going on there, or maybe I’m short-staffed. They know someone that is looking for a job. When those reps do more than give me stats, I want to do business with them. Most reps don’t think about that. They think, “My job is to pitch you what my knowledge.” That’s not it. That’s why I’m like, “You need to be a consultant and tell stories of a patient using your product, not just the stats, because we know people forget the information.”

You teach storytelling how to communicate your value to a provider. At the end of the day, what I’m all about is being a resource to your customers. When your customer can say, “When I have an issue and it comes to this space, I want to call on John. John will know how to help me in some way, shape, or form.” Your job is to be a resource to him and utilize your product as you do. That is the opportunity that every sales rep can take advantage of and truly be valued in the space that they’re working in.

Your show is called The Medical Sales Podcast. Let’s talk about picking a niche. I love it that you are interviewing all these people, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them that has expertise in this. One of the things you say here is you’ll laugh, you’ll learn, and you’ll be inspired. We need to be like that in person as well. We can’t be a robot putting out information.

[bctt tweet=”We live in the age of social proof.” username=”John_Livesay”]

There is a relationship. You are a person talking to another person, and people want to not only be informed but inspired. I maybe even entertained a little bit. That is a part that people get so focused on, “I’m only myself when I’m at home, and I’m a whole different person at work.” What you are saying that I love is, “No, when you have integrated it all together, you show up.” That is what makes you stand out in the hiring and the selling process.

One of the goals with the Medical Sales Podcast was there is this whole world that everybody hears about. The medical sales world, pharmaceutical sales, biotech sales, medical device sales, medical equipment sales, and I’ve heard patients say, “You drug reps come in, and you take up the doctor’s time.” No one understands what is going on outside of the people doing it.

I said, “There should be a resource anyone can tap into and find out not what the industry is about, the good that’s being done, and the value that every sales rep puts into medicine, but the lives these people are living, doing, care about, moves them, inspires them, and they are beautiful stories.” You were a guest, John. You have heard the episodes. You got some fascinating people doing some amazing things.

When you find that out, you will say, “Thank God they are in this space, and they’re committed to wanting to improve the quality of life through the patient and helping their providers do the best work their providers know how to do.” That’s a beautiful thing and that’s something that should be known by everyone.

I love how you evolved your career, and now you are the expert in getting other people to live the dream that you were living, and you offer many multiple ways to work with you, whether it’s branding on LinkedIn, tips on a podcast or getting coaching. What thought or quote do you have for us about life in general or medical staff?

One thing that we can all take home is no matter where you are, there is a place you can evolve to. We are in the age where if there’s something out there that you want, there’s an opportunity to go for it. You should not feel limited in this day and age. If you’re someone that’s saying, “I want to be in medical sales. I want to be the best medical sales rep ever. This year I want to be number one.” There is a way to make that happen, and you can make that happen. Nothing should make you think any differently.

When it comes to medical sales specifically, it’s a great field, and if anyone is interested, they should look into it and the beautiful careers that can recreate out of it. At the end of the day, you’re doing great work because it’s all geared to the patient. That’s the most important thing. The patient’s quality of life, regardless of what it is you’re selling. If it’s in medical sales, it’s geared to helping a patient live a better quality of life. If that’s what you’re about, that’s a field you should look into.

The best way to find you is EvolveYourSuccess.com. Samuel, thanks for doing what you do in the world. I can’t think of a number of people you have impacted in the ripple effect. That must make you feel good. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us and your stories.

Thanks for having me, John.

Important Links

• International Coaching Federation
• Evolve Your Success
• The Medical Sales Podcast
• Better Selling Through Storytelling Method Online Course

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