A pharmaceutical company can spend a considerable amount of time and effort developing and bringing new products to the market and be rightfully proud of its contribution to the healthcare industry. 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. At the end of the day, effective implementation of the sales level is what will really makes a difference and dictates success. 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. The senior executives of the parent company are much better off allocating their precious time to product development and legal issues, leaving pharmaceutical consultants to help with specific training and methodology.
When a sales team member fails to ink a deal with a prospect, this is often to do with a poor understanding of the prospect’s problems, concerns and/or issues. He or she should remember that financial details associated with the sale are not to be treated as primary, yet much further down the list. Today, the marketplace is very competitive and it’s not realistic to assume that a product will be sold just because it 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.
Client interaction must go through a series of phases, and product presentation and the explanation of benefits must await a certain 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. As margins are so narrow, the company does not have the luxury of padding in this area and must ensure that the pharmaceutical sales team is as prepared as humanly possible to engage in bringing results.
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 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.