The bigger the “why”, the easier the “how”.

Your comments to the previous post suggest that you feel that your marketing departments are not in touch with the sales reps. My observation has been that the sales aids that are supposed to be the foundation of your sales pitches are generally lousy. The language in them is mostly stiff and dead. There are many reasons for that but the three key ones are: 1. Marketing is not in touch with sales; 2. Fear of saying what needs to be said dominates everything; 3. Most creative marketers left Pharma to work for the Googles of the world. You are on your own now. The point here is that if you want be successful you will have to sharpen your skills. You are the ones who have to be in touch with reality of sales. You are the ones who have to say what needs to be said. You are the ones who have to be creative. From the time I started this blog I have beeng saying that it is not about your companies or products; it’s all about you. You are the brand that needs to be promoted, you are the biggest asset that you companies have whether they recognize that or not. Please be clear about that. So how are you going to do what needs to be done? The first step is to realize that the bigger is the “why”, the easier is the “how”. Know what you want, put all the key elements that we talked about in place and the results will come.  

Help me understand.

A few days ago I was at a POA meeting of one of the pharma companies. They invited me to get my feedback on their new promotional piece for one of the world’s largest brands. There were approximately fifteen sales reps, their DM, an ARM and two marketers from the brand team. The reps were presenting parts of the new sales aid, monitoring the impact, asking questions and getting my feedback and comments. We had a very intense, dynamic and informative interaction during which we went over at least two dozens points of how to deliver sales messages with the maximal impact on physicians. After a two hour long session the reps and their DM told me: ” You have no idea how huge this was for us”. Some of them took 3-4 pages of notes and comments; so it seemed like a great session. However, interestingly, the two marketers sitting there took no notes. Imagine-none. What was “huge” for the reps was not important for the marketing. I thought: “Wow, you must be self sufficient or plain naive. How can you possibly not being cureous about things that seemed so vital to your sales force?”. That brings two questions: Are your marketing departments even aware of what you folks struggle with?  And do they care? Please share your thoughts. Maybe that was just an isolated observation and your company’s marketing department is different. 

A simple tip.

One of the common reasons why doctors may be irritated and bothered by you is that they do not feel appreciated for their tme and efforts. What is the first word that comes out of your mouth when a doctor answered your question? How about if she asked you a question? Or if he raised an objection? Or simply asked you how you were? How about the very end of your sales call? I will share with you a trivial wisdom, that is not a matter of politeness but rather a profound subconscious bonding tool that you should use as many times as it is natural during your interaction with your docs. Thank them. Whatever little participation you were able to generate even if it was just a head turn-thank them. Sincere acknowledgement coming from you is the first and foremost condition of you connection with your doctors. My observation has been that the only situation when sales reps consistently use “thank you” is after they get an autograph for their samples. That is not enough. Practice your THANKS.  Thank you for reading this.