Essential Pointers On Empowering The Sales Representative
posted in Off-line Marketing |What will it take to survive in the pharmaceutical sales industry? Hardly the same approach to the role of sales and marketing “at the sharp end,” and more than likely a complete re-evaluation of the way that pharmaceutical marketing training is structured. For far too long now, conventional methods of engagement have been celebrated, where a sales representative is expected to “detail” with a set number of healthcare professionals in a certain region, over a set period of time and according to given parameters. Success was often measured in terms of percentage of penetration and the focus was product-centric rather than client- or problem-centric. The pharmaceutical consultant has been waking up to the fact that the industry is changing significantly and we need to change our approach to business tactics and methodology, or we will be left behind. Conventional approaches to pharmaceutical marketing training are becoming increasingly outdated.
A pharmaceutical consultancy can certainly help to develop new tactics and methods for the client in the workshop, but most of the attention needs to be paid on how changes are implemented in the field. In short, the sales representative, him or herself, needs to be reinvented. Is it possible to achieve this with an existing team of reps? Certainly, entrenched attitudes and approaches need to be overcome and the rep encouraged to develop a more “entrepreneurial” approach to doing business. Indeed, the sales representative will now have to take on much more of an independent role, at the very least in the way that they approach their income generation motivators.
The very definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who is willing to go the extra mile and not be easily disheartened. This will often involve innovative thinking and will require a greater understanding of the problem and, indeed the client. The new entrepreneurial sales representative will be far more engaged with the buyer and will be able to reveal intelligence that can be of great value to the company, so the pharmaceutical consultancy should develop the concept of a think tank to correlate all this new-found data. This may also require a fundamental change in thinking, as the entrepreneurial sales rep should begin to understand that a pooling of intelligence resources could only help everyone to explain and understand the market better and in turn focus on enhanced sales potential.
All the methods of motivation revolve around a comparison of peer performance to push the sales force forward. The rep with higher revenue was seen as superior and this in turn was used to motivate the remainder of the force. The pharmaceutical consultant today must realise that this is counterproductive in the long run and that an entrepreneurial sales rep must be trained to contribute to the overall goals of the sales team, in order to be more successful. The issues of motivation and remuneration must be approached from a completely new angle, but when all is said and done this entire process is far more likely to result in a much more fruitful relationship between the end-user and the rep. Goodness knows that any improvements here would be welcome, as the typical practitioner has been ready to turn away from the attentions of the sales rep, due to a perceived lack of care or even apathy.
Alan Gillies is the CEO of L2L Consulting, a cutting-edge pharma consultancy firm which specialises in optimising productivity and performance within international companies by applying tailored organisational strategies.
