Peak Sales Force Effectiveness Requires The Correct Methodology

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. It is not good enough for a pharmaceutical company to rest on its laurels when it comes to its creative ability, as it will be judged by the effectiveness of its sales and marketing team, which must be well 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. Most pharmaceutical consultants have a wide range of experience themselves and know full well how to motivate, manage and process a sales team.

Far too often the act of a sale is construed as a perfect result. While winning a sale is undoubtedly important, as after all without sales nothing is achieved, there must be tangible and measurable value attached to the sale, from every point of view. However efficient the executive, without the creation of a good relationship between both parties, the long-term baseline value of the transaction is questionable. In this analysis, incentives must be prepared and deployed selectively, with the aim of achieving a “win-win” solution all around.

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. The goals set should represent a journey rather than the destination and multi-tiered targets should encourage, but always lead to a “carrot” which is just out of reach. This will ensure that the sales executive is constantly engaged.

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. While administrative burdens should be kept to a minimum as we have said, training must nevertheless be prioritised. Generally, pharma consulting firms can help to roll out the latest in procedures, educate in technical issues and methodology and focus on product awareness. 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.