High Sales Force Effectiveness Requires The Right Strategy

Proper incentivisation is critical to the effectiveness of an organisation's sales force. However, the methods of incentivisation are often misinterpreted, poorly devised or glossed over, ultimately leading to low levels of efficiency and morale, poorly motivated individuals and lacklustre results. The pharmaceutical company may be a leader in its field, be very creative and with cutting-edge solutions, but the organisation will only be truly effective if its sales and marketing team is well prepared and trained. The team must not only be knowledgeable about the product, its features and benefits, but must be infused with the knowledge, techniques and strategies needed to exist and produce within a highly competitive commercial environment. The sales team must be well established and managed and pharmaceutical consultants have the experience, knowledge and background to enable this objective.

The achievement of the sale is not the end of the story. It is true to say that without sales nothing happens, but many different factors must be used to judge the absolute value of a sale. The sales executive may appear to be very efficient, but unless a meaningful relationship has been created between the buyer and the seller, the overall or net value of the transaction can be questioned. As such, it is important that the company applies incentives very carefully and selectively, so that a “win-win” situation is always achieved.

It is human nature for an individual to likely be more productive if he or she is incentivised. This will require the creation of sensible goals related to existing benchmarks. Correct incentivisation will enhance the effectiveness of the sales force, but the opposite is also true. Rather than setting a goal, the incentive path should be a journey with multiple tiers and an endpoint that is always just out of reach. In this way, the sales executive will be always focused.

Feedback from pharmaceutical consulting firms will tell us that sales executives are often engaged with mundane and administrative work and spend only a small amount of their time directly communicating with productive targets. Due to this amazing statistic, time management should be a top priority and executives should do whatever they can to cut down on the ancillary or administrative work necessary. Indeed, if these boring tasks get completely out of control, certain personality types can rebel and this can have a serious, knock-on effect on creativity and achievements.

If a comprehensive training program is practised by the organisation, each team member will get the feeling that he or she is dynamically engaged with the overall goal. Do not confuse administration with training – training is a priority, while administrative burdens should be minimised. This should include product awareness as well as methodology and techniques, and the latest procedures can be implemented through pharma consulting firms. Such companies have been proven to raise morale, cut out negative emotions, inject just the right amount of enthusiasm and draw on their extensive industry background.

Alan Gillies is the Director of L2L Consulting, an elite pharmaceutical consultancy firm which specialises in Strategy Development and Implementation Excellence for prestigious multi-national organisations.