Sales

Brand growth can be significantly accelerated by improving the effectiveness of medical representatives in physician calls.

Brand growth can be significantly accelerated by improving the effectiveness of medical representatives in physician calls. Top pharmaceutical organizations in Europe and the US continually innovate their medical promotion in-call procedures and this has resulted in significant gains in sales, market share and bottom line growth.

This whitepaper outlines some of the In-Call effectiveness issues that pharmaceutical organizations face and the initiatives which some of the better performing, high-growth organizations have implemented to improve the impact of their sales calls.

The benefits for companies that can do this successfully include faster trial of new products, more regular users of the product and more physicians that adopt the brand as their product of choice. This will translate to higher sales, market share and profits.

1) The Challenge adding more value for the physician in the call

We all like to believe that our products are truly differentiated from those of the competition, that we have a really strong proposition and a significant competitive advantage. Market research studies may even show that physicians think our products have a unique selling proposition (USP) and that they will prescribe our products over the competition.

Often, we believe that to gain positive prescribing decisions, all we need to do is to successfully communicate the key brand messages to target physicians with a competitive share of voice level (SOV). Weve all dealt with sales force implementation problems in the past, but nowadays, most companies with good training and strong field coaching programs can more or less guarantee successful communication of the products key selling messages to target physicians. So why does our product with its USP, strong customer proposition and competitive advantage not perform as well as we need it to?

High-growth pharmaceutical organizations in Europe and the US have realised that for most products, simply communicating the products key messages is insufficient to steal significant market share from the competition. In todays market, most serious pharmaceutical companies have well presented and well trained medical reps with good presentation materials and strong sales arguments. In fact, these basic elements are fast becoming a must for any pharmaceutical company wanting to do business. High growth organizations, however, understand that they cannot rely on these factors alone to drive market share growth, and that other ways need to be found to differentiate their company from the competition.

One of the ways they do this is through their sales force, by adding more value for the physician in the call.

2) The solution - changes to the in-call process to drive added value

High-growth companies have discovered that to create differentiation, and add more value for the physician, the first step is define an in-call process in which the medical rep creates dialog with the physician, in order to gain a clear understanding of the physicians patients and prescribing needs.

This insight into the physicians patients and prescribing needs, coupled with their excellent therapy area understanding, own product and competitor product knowledge, allows the medical reps of high-growth companies to develop far more convincing sales arguments with successful outcomes. Also, they are far more consultative in their approach, helping the physician to think about his patients and to define the criteria by which the prescribing decision should be made.

As evidence of this, a straw poll was recently conducted among sales managers at a top multinational pharmaceutical company in Brazil. The prevailing opinion was that the biggest constraint to greater sales effectiveness is the ability of their reps to engage with their target physicians in this way. In fact, this is a common complaint throughout the industry.

So why dont more pharmaceutical organizations embark upon programs to improve their in-call effectiveness? There are a number of reasons for this, among them the need for an objective method to conduct measurements of call quality and an overall framework for driving the improvements. The diagram below outlines a framework for changes to the in-call procedure to drive greater effectiveness.

3) Call quality effectiveness improvement framework:

Many pharmaceutical companies, including best practice organizations, have a carefully defined in-call process (otherwise known as a stepped call process). The first step is, therefore, to carefully define the required in-call process. Ideally, companies wishing to do this, should benchmark other companies in the pharmaceutical and other industries.

Best practice companies will differ from other pharmaceutical companies in that they will have methodologies to objectively assess each of the steps of the call. This specifically includes the customer needs analysis, referred to earlier, where the medical rep, through a series of open and closed questions, will seek a better understanding about the type of patients the physician treats, the type of conditions they present with, and the physicians key prescribing needs. An analysis of the results will highlight the strong and weak points on a collective and individual basis, allowing the company to prioritize the interventions that will have the largest impact on performance.

Having prioritized the necessary interventions, these will be implemented via tailor-made training courses, follow-up with intensive field-coaching and, ideally, field visits by other interested stakeholders from the head office and sales hierarchy. Some companies may also wish to consider short-term sales incentives to help drive the required improvements.

Finally, best practice companies understand that in order to achieve and sustain the desired improvements, an ongoing measurement system needs to be implemented and both the medical reps and sales hierarchy need to be held responsible for the achievement of set goals.

4)  The outcomes higher sales, market share and profits

High growth organizations that have embarked on upgrades to their in-call sales procedure, have enjoyed very significant benefits. It is hardly surprising that physicians, accustomed to medical reps who merely repeat product messages in a parrot-like fashion, will respond very positively to reps that interact with them this way. Reps who show interest in the physicians patients and prescribing needs and have an in-depth knowledge of the disease and available treatment options, coupled with the skills and ability to convert this information and knowledge into strong sales arguments, will be valued by physicians much more than their features and benefits counterparts.

The benefits for reps (and companies) which can do this successfully include faster trial of new products, more regular users of the product and more physicians that adopt the brand as their product of choice. This will translate to higher sales, market share and profits.

Information about the author:

Martin Stuart Smith is a specialist in Commercial Effectiveness. He has worked in several market-leading, blue-chip multinationals in Brazil, Latin America, Europe, North America and Australia, helping them to identify, prioritize and implement sales effectiveness initiatives with significant impacts to their top line revenues and bottom line profits. Companies include GSK, MSD, Gillette, BP, Colgate, Mattel, Diageo and Reed Elsevier.

Projects in Brazil include work for a major multinational pharmaceutical company, where he helped redefine their mature products strategy and a three-year project at Gillette Brazil which involved their Point of Sales strategy (pharmacy and supermarkets), including a complete redesign of the performance management and compensation incentives system involving a sales and merchandising force in excess of 550 people.

Martin lives in Brazil with his wife and son.

Free Consulation:

How does your sales force measure up against world-class benchmarks? For a free consultation, please contact Martin.

Contact details:

E-mail : martin.smith@sfe-in-action.com.br