2 Ways to Change Pharmaceutical Sales Training For Good
Selling pharmaceutical products is not going to get any easier. What supposed to work five years back, or even last year for that matter, have proven to be below expectations.Need I repeat the saying?
There's one that says:
"Insanity is doing the same thing and expect different results."
The message is loud and clear:
Stop doing the same thing and start doing something else if you want different outcomes.
When it comes to pharmaceutical sales, I'm proposing a change to the way companies or 'outsourced' handles it so that sales reps are more equipped to sell.
Right now:
Let us start the ball rolling with two ways to change sales training for medical reps forever.
1) Change the emphasize from teaching to doing
The core of training in fields outside selling is training hours.
No matter how much material salespersons need to cover during the training session, a more important thing to look at is how much time they spend practicing:
Did the trainer know how much hours a rep needs to break the emotional barrier?
Do they even know what an emotional barrier is?
Did they log the training hours?
Did they know an essential component that guarantees training success other than hours of practice?
If, for example, I was required to sell a new basal analog to the government sector:
What kind of competencies do I need to acquire?
How would I acquire them?
Imagine the above situation for a moment.
I can predict, typically, what will take place is, I will be called in for training. I will be given the material on diabetes and using insulin to treat the disease. Maybe I will be asked to do self-training on the web before I went for the formal training.
Then, on the training day, trainers will drill me on disease knowledge, product knowledge, and competitors' knowledge, and then, at the very end, I might have to go through a mock detailing session.
Aha! I know that such a session is every pharma reps personal course (wink!).
After that, it's all luck. Depending on how well a rep adjusts her situation, which is not drilled during the training, success is pretty much left to chance.
Chance action gets a chance result!
The way to tilt success to our side is to prepare all possible angles. It might take longer, but it's the most sensible way to proceed.
2) Move from current to better
I admit that I based my training philosophy, almost all, from the teaching of Dr. Michael Hewitt Gleeson in Newsell. I urge you to get a copy of it if you haven't done so. It is consequently vital to understand that whatever action we're taking now, there's always a better action, out there.
All we need to do is to deliberately look out for it ...
Applying that to our training philosophy, when we find that our current training strategy did produce the expected outcomes, we must take that as a contemporary view, and start moving to a better view of the situation.
How we determine what's better?
That's a secret I might share when the perfect time comes.
Until then, feel free to leave your best guess in the comment box below.
Sales Training And Discipline
You see:
Training to sell requires more than reading and re-reading modules.
You don't call yourself 'trained' without greasing your elbows.
At least you need to sweat your palm, even temporarily.
One of the best ways to look at how to train right for selling, online or off, is to look at how martial artists trained.
Taekwondo practitioners, for example, do not earn their black belt after a single session. Some take years to get to such mastery level.
And the training process begins with one class, then another, and then another, very much like how to learn to sell.
It takes one competency after another.
To be able to do so, you need to throw in another ingredient - discipline.
Simple Definition Of Discipline
When we hear the word discipline, what kind of image formed in our minds?
I don't know about you, but in my mind:
I picture men and women in uniforms ...
... Army, Navy, Police, Firefighter - any of these fit nicely into my image of discipline.
No wonder some people shy away from discipline.
Given the critical part,, discipline plays in ensuring the success of learning any useful skill, a clear understanding of what it means is in order.
I can tell you that, it got nothing to do with the uniform.
Imagine:
You're slightly overweight, and you want to lose some excess weight.
What do you do?
First, you start with a plan:
You map out how you're going to get to where you want to from where you are now.
You must be able to see the final outcome and work your way backward.
You spell out every step that will lead you to your end result.
That's the first thing you do.
Next, you take action:
And we're not talking about bringing all the steps at once.
You take small steps and work forward from there.
For example:
If you want to lose that extra weight, and you plan to control your meal, you might want to start with having your toast for breakfast "unbuttered."
One simple, small step.
In due time, these small steps will string to form a new outcome.
In this case, losing your excess weight.
What Does This Got To Do With Training?
The whole selling competencies you'll be trained for are like a huge elephant.
If you're smart:
You're not going to eat it up in one sitting.
What you want to do is to cut it into chunks of edible portions.
Remember our 'losing excess weight' example?
Basically:
The plan for your training modules had been set by trainers or companies.
Certain competency levels and milestones had also been set.
What you do is:
You tackle the module one after another.
You take the small step and move forward.
Like I said earlier:
The training portal online for selling skills is not going to transfer the skills just like that.
This is not osmosis.
You can't expect to sit in front of the computer monitor and absorb its essence.
No way!
That's not how it works.
To make the skills yours:
You need to roll up your sleeve and start working on them, one skill at a time.
That's how discipline and training compliment each other.
I remember my trainer used to say:
"What if you get an idiot and he's highly motivated, highly disciplined?
What do you get out of these combinations?"
And he answered:
"A motivated idiot!"
We all can imagine what that kind of person will bring to a sales organization, right?
Final Note On Training And Discipline
Competencies are built over time.
The most important task is to start and then to get going.
Training is like a map that points to a hidden treasure.
Just having the map in your hand is not going to guarantee that you'll find it.
You need to follow the map, seek every milestone, and perhaps, the treasure will be yours if everything was according to plan.
Discipline is:
Those small steps you take towards success.
So, stop learning about training materials and really start doing, with discipline.
Online training or offline sales training, no reliable results have ever been achieved without cold, hard sweat, and discipline.
Look around for suitable training on selling skills.
You already know how to make it work.
Top 3 Reasons Why the Current Pharmaceutical Sales Training Flop
We have discovered in the last article how consultative selling had lost its power and is perceived as dead by individual salespeople. You have also digest my argument about why that model is not yet dead but just evolve. The importance of understanding this issue is actually about adapting the selling model into the sales-force overall strategy.
We've also noticed that more and more Pharma Companies are moving towards training that gives focus to patients.
MSD and Novartis, two moguls for the pharmaceutical industry recently release their quarter three reports (the Year 2012), and it was no secret that both reporting lower sales figures compared to the same period last year.
Now, many can be said about the lower performance, but since we're on selling the topic, obviously I'm going to look at the sales angle of it. By no means, I'm representing both companies or analysts of the stock market. I'm just expressing things from what I see with my pair of eyes, and what I can stir in my mind as a person who's been around the pharma industry for a while now.
Background Argument
When sales are down, two departments will come under the microscope, namely:
the marketing
the sales department.
Some companies identify both to be in the same territory (sales and marketing), and some companies separate them:
Marketing sees the bigger picture.
It's like the complete picture of a jigsaw puzzle.
Sales on the other hand:
The pieces that make the complete puzzle or picture.
Sales need to be put together, bits and pieces, to make a clear picture.
In generating revenue for a pharma company:
The marketing map the strategies, and sales walk down the terrain, fight the enemy and win (or lose) the battle.
So when revenue is down, like in the case of MSD or Novartis, then it could be said that the marketing strategies and the sales tactics were not delivering expected results.
Which is which?
Offhand:
It's hard to tell, but like I alluded earlier, I'm looking at the sales point of view.
Pharmaceutical Sales Tactics
Marketing is responsible for setting the stage.
It draws the map.
When it passes the map to the sales team, the team will figure how to get from point A to point B of the map, for example, and starts devising the plan of action.
Plan of action is a tactic, based on the map, i.e. strategies lined out by marketing.
Selling is all about execution.
Imagine a team of football (soccer) that get in a game with a game plan:
The players are clear of what they need to do.
That increases the chances to play the game well.
No winning guarantee though.
They just know how to play it.
How well they play is not determine, to a large extent, on their situation at the game.
It got a lot to do with their conditioning before the game.
Conditioning before the game is training.
How well the players were trained become paramount to the success of the team during a game. Training will instill confidence for each player to execute their respective role and as a team, these small efforts will add up to gives the total outcomes, and of course, if they play well, they stand a chance to win.
In the pharma industry:
If the medical reps or pharmaceutical salesmen (women) are well trained, the company stands a better chance to rake in huge profits.
I can safely say that, if a pharmaceutical company performs poorly compared to the previous year, it sends a signal that whatever the sales team is doing right now, is not working.
I can also say that, with close observation, the low-performance tactics were due to the same, static training the pharma sales reps were receiving.
Here are the top three reasons why pharmaceutical sales rep training is a flop:
(1) Static Materials
This is simple to understand.
When I started out selling for the pharma industry, the primary selling model sales reps use was the FAB selling model.
FAB stands for:
features
advantages
benefits.
I was trained to think about these three things when selling to customers or meeting prospects.
I used words like, "A has long half-life which is three times longer than its competitor, so it only needs to be taken once a day. This means patients find it more convenient thus increases their compliance and treatment success..."
Many old-timers, I'm sure, can still relate to this, right?
Right now:
A product is more than just its physical appearance.
A product is a brand.
It represents a value.
It touches many people's lives in different ways, and FAB would not cut it anymore.
The company that still emphasizing it will find its revenue to decline every time.
(2) Blanket use
In general, two main markets make the pharma industry:
government
private.
Both sectors represent different needs thus warrant different approaches.
Imagine:
A company uses the direct cost saving pitch of the General Practitioner to the purchaser in the Government Hospital; what would the reaction be like?
Pharma companies need to customize an approach when dealing with a different market segment. It's a huge challenge to take up, with regards to the low workforce in the training department, and the market dynamic but companies that understand this will position themselves in a better position to increase revenue.
Is your pharma company making this folly?
(3) Sales Teaching versus Training
Many companies assume that hours spent training their sales reps were really training.
"Call them in. We're launching a new product, and we got to train them" is the usual pitch.
But that's sales teaching, not training.
Sales reps might be able to absorb may be parts of the materials.
When they're out on the field, that's when they realize that they need more training.
No!
They don't need more training.
They were actually trained when they see customers, which should be done earlier before they were sent out to meet them. Hours spent initially was just teaching.
So:
How can pharmaceutical companies rectify the situation and improve the bottom line?
I have the solution, but I'm not going to expose it yet.
It's not ready and the other end also not available :)
These 3 Factors Help To Make Pharmaceutical Sales Training Successful
Today's article is going to complete our discussion on pharmaceutical sales training.
In the previous two posts, we've explored at least three reasons why today's sales training is not practical, and we've also looked into two ways we can change the outcome for training.
It makes sense if you go back, and give those two a quick refresher before we proceed for today ...
pharmaceutical sales training
When a pharmaceutical company sends its people to sales training, it expects a positive outcome after they went through it.
Of course, that's the way it supposed to be after spending a certain amount of dollars for the training.
After all, the greatest asset for a pharmaceutical company is its sales reps (at least from my point of view), and that makes a successful pharmaceutical sales reps training imperative.
So, what makes the training successful?
Consider these 3 factors:
Timing
Relevancy
Trainers
(1) Timing
This particular factor is everything. A sales rep needs training before she went out to the field to sell to healthcare professionals, and ongoing training while on the job. For big pharma companies with considerable resources to train their people, they can allocate people to focus on a specific competency, like territory management, and they can come up with structured modules.
I've gone through them once, with a big pharmaceutical company, where my training was devised according to my sales skill (SL) level, from 1 to 4.
Not all companies can do this thus making timing more critical.
(2) Relevancy
You are already aware of how each sector in the pharmaceutical industry differs from one another, namely:
the Government sector
Private sector.
It makes sense then, to organize training to address different needs around these sectors.
If a pharma company resource permits, it can engage its reps in a general or overall selling skills training before focusing in a specific area.
(3) Trainers
People follow people.
People leave people.
Trainers are people who will set the stage for sales reps to either succeed or flop with appropriate training.
A company I used to work for had two sets of trainers:
one for the soft skills
another for the hard skills.
Each trainer in each subset (hard or soft), had the expertise in different competencies, for example, EQ, NLP, and Spin Selling. Trainers need to coordinate their efforts. Not only that, but they also need to be champions in their respective fields.
The consequences of becoming incompetent are pretty severe. It could affect the productivity and return on investment that companies have put in. The challenge often lies, not with new sales reps, but with the veterans. As the saying goes: hard to teach old dogs new tricks!
That's why competent trainers are essential...
When the issue of training is discussed, there are different angles that we may approach, but nothing is more important making it a success. There could be many issues affecting training success, items like right timing, training relevancy, and trainers' competencies are always sat on top of the list.
Agree?
What Should Product Knowledge Do To Medical Rep?
I can tell you off the bat, what product knowledge should not do to a medical sales rep:
It should not turn them into instant experts!
If that happens, it's bad for business.
Why?
I got the luxury of meeting many medical experts during my stint with the pharma industry.
And it's not a short one too.
Many celebrities marriage lived shorter than my career, so, you can bet that I've met quite a number of them over the years.
And what these experts are good at?
They're are good at what they do.
In fact, they're so good that some of them make me come back a few times in a day, over months span, just to introduce myself!
And I have not been given a chance to talk about my product yet ...
... Aah! Not yet Jose.
They are "convinced" that, whatever they're using now, is the best solution.
And yours just suck!
But that's OK because they are the customers. I need to be seen as taking their side.
It's a different story with the medical reps though.
When they "earned" the title 'instant medical expert,' after a few hours listening to lectures and learn a few slides, they already felt like they can take any experts on the field ...
... And I mean "real," legit experts!
So, on the day of the visit these prospects, the attitude says:
"I know what you know, and perhaps, even more!"
Therein lies the danger:
When they hear the prospect says, "I've been using Drug A, and it's quite alright ...", The 'instant expert' medical rep will immediately react, almost like a reflex, and counter with, "Wait! You don't know what I know. I just came back from training you know and in the preparation... "
And so the drama unfolds ...
... And the prospects, with all due respect, politely show the 'instant expert' the way out, respectfully, I might add, if the drug rep is in luck.
It could have been much, much worse.
I've seen it.
I know.
What then, should product knowledge do for medical sales representative?
A: It should make them more humble. The knowledge must allow them to respect different opinions, and enable meaningful discussion if needs be. Arrogant should be out of the picture. It means, no Mr. Instant Expert!
What else should it do?
A: It should allow the sales reps to be more intelligent in understanding customers' points of view.
How To Make The Most From Product Training
New or senior sales reps will have to go through product training.
There are many reasons for that.
For example, product launches and portfolio restructuring, which I went through recently.
And there's one 'compulsory' reason:
Poor performance, as shown by sales reps performance reports.
So, which is your reason for product training?
No matter what the reason is, you can make the most out of it.
Here's how:
Prepare Your Mindset
You can easily turn-off by the negative idea of why you're attending the training. An 'unwilling' mind is as right as an absentee. You appear to be there, but your account is traveling to Allah knows where :-)
And some reps think that training is a penalty.
Obviously, these are reps who show poor performance.
Remember:
It's not what happens to us, but what we make out of it that counts.
Positive, open mind, is essential to get the best out of the training session.
Prepare The Right Material
Did you bring the 500 pages manually?
Did you print out the pre-course material?
Having the right material at the training is essential.
These days, they can be carried along in devices like laptops or iPads. No need to bring the hard copies.
Trainers will instruct you on what material to read, and what to bring.
Do pay attention.
A checklist would be a great help.
TIP: If you're traveling, you can prepare beforehand by asking your colleague help, provided they're joining the training as well. This way, you got less stuff to carry with you.
Learn The Right Way
This subject alone can command a book to address.
But the point is:
You MUST know how you learn best.
In general, learning mode is either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.
In fact, all people use these three modes, and one method is dominant.
Find your favorite model and use it to maximize your learning.
Many people, sales reps included, don't like to attend product training. The most common reason given is, training put them back in school ...
.. And they hate school!
This is just one example of having an 'incorrect' mindset, but it can be fixed.
Combine the right mindset with having the right materials and right learning mode, and you will make the most from your product training ...
... Or any other training, for that matter.
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