Medical representative vs inside sales associate

The differences between medical representatives and inside sales associates can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become a medical representative, becoming an inside sales associate takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, an inside sales associate has an average salary of $40,687, which is higher than the $36,309 average annual salary of a medical representative.

The top three skills for a medical representative include patients, customer service and first aid kits. The most important skills for an inside sales associate are inside sales, sales associates, and strong customer service.

Medical representative vs inside sales associate overview

	Medical Representative	Inside Sales Associate
Yearly salary	$36,309	$40,687
Hourly rate	$17.46	$19.56
Growth rate	4%	4%
Number of jobs	176,481	320,863
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 68%	Bachelor's Degree, 63%
Average age	47	47
Years of experience	2	4

What does a medical representative do?

A medical representative is responsible for selling medical equipment, medications, and other medical supplies by demonstrating benefits and features to patients and healthcare professionals. Medical representatives work closely with their company's marketing department to develop strategic procedures and promotional techniques to attract customers and generate revenues for the business. They respond to the customers' inquiries and concerns, take their orders, and process their payments. A medical representative also analyzes the current trends in the medical industry to identify business opportunities that would establish a market presence.

What does an inside sales associate do?

An inside sales associate is responsible for selling the company's goods and services through remote communication. Inside sales associates make calls to potential customers, demonstrate the products' features, take orders, process payments, and inform the customers of the delivery details. They strategize the most effective sales pitches to attract the customers on purchasing more services that would generate revenues and increase the company's profitability and brand image. An inside sales associate also supports the marketing team in developing marketing campaigns and promotional offers depending on customer demands and requests.

Medical representative vs inside sales associate salary

Medical representatives and inside sales associates have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Medical Representative	Inside Sales Associate
Average salary	$36,309	$40,687
Salary range	Between $27,000 And $48,000	Between $30,000 And $54,000
Highest paying City	Lansing, MI	Seattle, WA
Highest paying state	Michigan	Washington
Best paying company	Capgemini	MSCI
Best paying industry	Pharmaceutical	Health Care

Differences between medical representative and inside sales associate education

There are a few differences between a medical representative and an inside sales associate in terms of educational background:

	Medical Representative	Inside Sales Associate
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 68%	Bachelor's Degree, 63%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	SUNY College of Technology at Alfred

Medical representative vs inside sales associate demographics

Here are the differences between medical representatives' and inside sales associates' demographics:

	Medical Representative	Inside Sales Associate
Average age	47	47
Gender ratio	Male, 45.2% Female, 54.8%	Male, 57.3% Female, 42.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.8% Unknown, 3.7% Hispanic or Latino, 14.2% Asian, 5.2% White, 72.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 3.8% Unknown, 3.7% Hispanic or Latino, 14.0% Asian, 5.1% White, 73.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between medical representative and inside sales associate duties and responsibilities

Medical representative example responsibilities.

Achieve market share growth in the psychiatry, cardiovascular, and neurology markets.
Lead the nation in new product introduction of ZAC, an anti hypertension medication.
Manage the sale of pharmaceuticals to treat hypertension, cholesterol, diabetes, depression, women's health and pain/neurological disorders.
Manage specialty sales of psychiatry and other products across Mid-Michigan health-care systems.
Manage products in gastroenterology, cardiology, endocrinology, psychiatry, rheumatology, and OB-GYN categories.
Achieve sales growth objectives by incorporating product/technical knowledge, teamwork, customer and multi-product focus, innovation and creativity.

Inside sales associate example responsibilities.

Manage individual sales activities by developing highly effective, communications focuse relationship with multiple sales channels.
Provide awareness to customers of the benefits of moving to a cloud platform for intra/customer facing web applications.
Develop a standardize, customize CRM system to track sales and marketing ROI that link into operational and financial ERP systems.
Calculate roofing amounts/square footage etc.
Maintain cleanliness and organization of stockroom shelves.
Conduct effective outbound telemarketing calls to potential and existing clients.

Medical representative vs inside sales associate skills

Common medical representative skills

Patients, 17%
Customer Service, 13%
First Aid Kits, 9%
Incident Investigations, 9%
CPR, 6%
Medical Terminology, 6%

Common inside sales associate skills

Inside Sales, 13%
Sales Associates, 7%
Strong Customer Service, 6%
Sales Process, 5%
Customer Satisfaction, 5%
Sales Floor, 5%

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Medical Representative
Medical Representative vs Inside Sales Associate

Updated January 8, 2025

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