Winning President's Club with Zero Sales Experience | Leslie Loveless (2/4)

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“No one looks at a teacher's resume and thinks they can go sell.”

Leslie Loveless leaves the classroom for pharmaceutical sales in 1999, a coveted industry at the time. She describes the culture shock of moving from a school building into a territory-based role, where her days meant driving between providers, managing her own schedule, and learning to sell one-to-one.

The transition wasn't easy on paper. Recruiters and hiring managers saw that Leslie lacked sales experience, but they missed the skills she had built teaching: public speaking, preparation, performance, and the ability to hold an audience's attention. At Takeda, those skills helped her win President's Club in both of her first two years.

Leslie then explains how a call from Adam Slone led her to Quest Diagnostics, where she moved quickly from individual sales into national sales training. The selling motion was completely different: hospital and laboratory deals required service, economic value, and buy-in from medical, operational, procurement, and financial stakeholders.

Key Topics Covered:

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Find our guest, Leslie Loveless, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieloveless1

Slone Partners: https://slonepartners.com/

Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/

Learn more about Excedr:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/

Website: https://www.excedr.com

Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin
OkKyojin: https://flow.page/kyojin

Resources & Articles:

Takeda: https://www.takeda.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:

Takeda: https://www.takeda.com/

Quest Diagnostics: https://www.questdiagnostics.com/

00:00 Intro

01:37 Choosing Pharmaceutical Sales

02:38 The Teacher Resume Problem

02:54 Two Weeks Of Training In Chicago

04:04 Learning The Territory

04:27 Freedom Outside The Classroom

05:07 Public Speaking As A Sales Skill

05:53 Selling One To One

08:47 Two Presidents Club Wins

08:54 The Value Of Orthogonal Experience

10:16 Connecting Science To The Market

13:12 Adam Slone's First Call

14:50 Joining Quest Diagnostics

15:25 An Unexpected Training Role

18:05 Selling Into Health Systems

20:39 Service And Economics Win Enterprise Deals

26:22 Outro

The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.