Useful Guidelines For Accelerating Productivity And Performance
Feb 22
A good pharmaceutical company can be very proud of its overall contribution to the business of healthcare, as it spends much time and effort conceiving, developing and presenting new products to the marketplace. The company can invest huge sums of money and spend many weary hours going through a process of consultation and lobbying and in dealing with the ultimate in bureaucratic red tape. Ultimately, success boils down to the importance of effective implementation at the sales level. At the highest level of a pharmaceutical company, resources should be set aside to engage a pharmaceutical consulting firm, enabling you to focus on implementation and the achievement of meaningful results. These senior executives are busy people and should spend their precious time dealing with the development of their products and associated issues, with pharmaceutical consultants delegated to help with the necessary training, administration and implementation.
One of the primary reasons why a sales team member may fail to consummate a deal with the prospect is due to a lack of understanding of the potential client’s problems, issues and concerns. The financial repercussions of a sale should be almost last on the list, yet it is often the principle concern. There is much competition in the market and sales do not happen just because a product is available. On the contrary, many questions arise and all issues must be dealt with before the front-line professional will be at all ready to even trust the business, let alone engage and move forward. This arena is very delicate, a hard approach to selling will always fail and as such, a sales executive who isn’t very familiar this type of business approach should be specifically counselled by the pharmaceutical consultant.
When interacting with the client, pitching the benefits of the product must await its particular time and place. Due to unwelcome hard sales tactics deployed by old style salespeople, a certain lack of professionalism and the emergence of years of distrust, a degree of hostility can be expected in any potential relationship at a primary stage. This hostility can be difficult to overcome and one of the first tasks of the executive should be to build trust to enable the ratio of effective implementation to improve.
In our society, pharma consulting firms have current practice in the industry and know what it takes to break down the barriers that will certainly be addressed. This will require a focused approach, the training of adequate sales techniques, an understanding of territorial application and time management and, of course, product education, as without all these the sales closure ratio will be poor. Against all these difficulties, margins are still narrow and so the company must ensure that its pharmaceutical sales team is as ready as possible to get out in the market and bring results, with little margin for error.
Motivation is important when it comes to the sales team’s results, but financial remuneration or a convoluted bonus structure should not be primary, rather job dedication and performance satisfaction should be powerful incentives themselves. The sales executive must clearly see that a deal consummation represents the beginning of a two-way and dynamic relationship with a new client and must not view the task ahead as a means of amassing financial gain alone.
Alan Gillies is the Director of L2L Consulting, an elite pharmaceutical consultancy firm which specialises in Strategy Development and Implementation Excellence for prestigious multi-national organisations.