Have we been focusing on a “one-size-fits-all” approach to sales force effectiveness? This is a question that we have to ask ourselves after all, due to the fact that the average pharmaceutical sales force budget is under considerable pressure and the pharmaceutical consultant is being asked leading questions by senior management within the company. While it is always true to say that the 80/20 rule is a fantastic indicator throughout the business world and we know that a certain proportion of our sales force is going to be highly productive while many are not, it’s high time that the typical sales company and pharmaceutical consultancy addresses exactly how salesforce effectiveness is – well, just not effective.
Consider many of the metrics that are traditional in our world and consider the approach that is often used as a sweeping, across-the-board approach to the issue. We are far too willing to accept generalities and not prepared to investigate segmentation, so it should not be surprising that we have less than spectacular results. For example, high-volume prescribers are almost universally targeted, purely due to the fact that they spend a lot of money. Little attention is paid to the individual doctor’s primary motivation, what he or she happens to like, dislike, or what happens to move the doctor to purchase; rather, an assumption is made that spending will be allocated in this niche, irrespective. It’s almost as if they are treating the professional as an automaton and this is surely not what pharmaceutical marketing training seeks to teach, is it?
We need to focus on industry intelligence, casting our net wide to find out how competitors interact with particular professionals. Far too often a broad brush approach to this issue is used and we need to be far more specific when we are working out who to target. Surely, results are evident, but just consider how these could have been far more fruitful if a different tactic or approach had been employed. In the quest for the correct tactic and approach, we need to analyse the group behaviour of a broad range of end-users, instead. We cannot assume that a particular course of action is going to work and we need to dig deeper to really find out what drives a decision-maker to make that decision. Once these groups have been segmented, they can be placed into appropriate categories, potentially leading to far more productive results. This is where the pharmaceutical consultancy should practice diversity and ensure that pharmaceutical marketing training for the modern era involves fewer generalisations.
While it may once have been okay to buy data, resources and other lists based on so-called “intelligence,” this should be questioned today. Many of our competitors could have access to the same lists and it is little wonder that certain doctors feel that they have been overly targeted and are suffering from consultant overloads. It is inconceivable that we could be relying on this style of approach considering how much is at stake and the pharmaceutical consultant really needs to steer senior management toward a better way of analysing data, to come up with a much better solution. Members of the salesforce itself may already have a lot of this data and intelligence, due to their one on one interaction over the years. This is the kind of intelligence that we need to use.
Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of L2L Consulting, specialising in enabling pharmaceutical companies to achieve new heights of productivity and performance, throughout all levels of management and revenue generating activities.