Jan 1, 1970 - Jan 1, 1970,

Dr. Bates’ Talkback: 4 keys to unlocking sales team value

Dr. Andree K. Bates explores four strategies for maximizing the performance of sales team



With all the budget cuts in pharma, the pressure is on to unlock additional value from the sales teams. CEOs are pushing for higher sales targets, while the competitive environment intensifies and more and more generic competitors enter the fray.

In light of this, I have noticed an interesting thing: Some companies’ sales forces consistently outperform others, no matter what drug they are promoting. We see this even when we tease out the impact on sales and market share from them and their co-promotion partners separately. In analyzing the drivers and data, we see a secret emerging from these outperforming sales teams that can be used successfully by other teams.

Sales forces are valuable assets to be managed. But how should a sales director ascertain whether the sales force is deployed most effectively? Certainly, many of the traditional measures—such as share of voice, benchmarking, and implementing best practice—rarely maximize the value and impact of the sales team.

Every sales team brings its own unique strengths to the market. There are four key things to consider when striving to unlock maximum value from your sales team:

1. Start with customer drivers rather than sales team issues

Sales directors are very good at identifying issues within their organizations (territory boundaries, lack of accountability, confused roles, etc) and finding ways to solve these problems. However by starting with these issues, sales directors miss the fact that sales potential varies across customers. This continues to change in a market as dynamic as pharmaceuticals. Focusing on customer segments and their sales force drivers results in a sales force structure and approach grounded in buying behavior as opposed to organizational behavior.

2. Define your company’s ‘good’ rather than benchmarking on another company’s

We see a lot of ‘industry best practices’ mentioned at conferences and within companies. This is good for identifying a ‘best in class’ and replicating a model, but it defines success according to another company’s or team’s needs and results. To be best in class for your company, you need to have your own perspective on what is a good sales model for your customers and your team. Consider factors such as the current market environment and your customers’ prescribing/buying levers in that environment and how your team matches up to these.

3. Maximize ‘good’ share of voice, not any share of voice

We find an obsession with ‘share of voice’ metrics rather tiresome. It is essentially saying, ‘Who shouts loudest wins’. But what if what they are shouting is not moving prescribing? I have heard clients say, ‘I don’t understand. We have the highest share of voice.’ But when you look at the content, they are not focused on the real market drivers for that therapeutic category or their customers. If you are going to focus and measure share of voice, focus on the ‘good’ share of voice.

4. Build institutional capabilities, not just individual skills

A lot of time and money is spent on maximizing individual sales rep results (in-field coaching, role playing, etc) but less appears to be invested in collective knowledge on what works and doesn’t work—and what surpasses the individual capability in the field. If you are focused on improving individual reps’ behavior, what happens when they move companies? Companies need a learning agenda to collectively improve the overall capability of the organization.

So, where to from here? First, diagnose your current sales force impact. If involved in a co-promote, you also need to analyze the relative impact of each company team and how to enhance the overall effectiveness of these. Consider the following:

·      What are their strengths and weaknesses?

·      Are their strengths drivers for your target customer segments or not?

·      Are their weaknesses drivers for your target customer segments or not?

·      What can you do across your sales teams to capitalize on the driver behaviors?

·      How can you de-emphasize the non-driver behaviors?

·      By doing this by a certain amount, what will that mean in terms of market share gain or loss?

Dr. Andree K. Bates, a regular contributor to eyeforpharma, is CEO of Eularis, which applies analytics to determine the sales impact of marketing programs.

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Jan 1, 1970 - Jan 1, 1970,