Suggestions For Determining Sales Force Effectiveness With Skilled Pharmaceutical Consultants

All the work that you put into creating and positioning the product will be of no use unless the pharmaceutical company can successfully market its products to the end-user. The selection of a productive sales and marketing team is critical to the survival of the company and this team must be adequately trained in not only the value and benefits of the product, but the techniques, initiatives and strategies necessary to go out into the marketplace and actually sell. Despite its importance, the effectiveness of the sales force is often given poor attention. Invariably, pharmaceutical consultants are highly skilled in training and motivating and can bring a company's sales team up to a high level of effectiveness, with considerable potential gain for the organisation.

One well-known football coach once claimed that “winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.” This is a mindset that a sales and marketing executive should retain at all times. Although valuable contacts may be made and additional experience a must, if no sales are made then no value is realised, either.

It is essential to correctly motivate a team and one of the first things that a pharmaceutical consulting firm will help initiate is the creation of meaningful measurement tools. Within sales, the measurement of activity levels is only part of the equation. It should be remembered that sales volume by itself is not an indicator of efficient activity by the sales executive, as it must be related to value. If a valuable relationship is not established between all principals concerned, then the account may not necessarily be seen as successful, as we need to judge more than the actual dollar amount involved. Of critical importance is the alignment between the company and the buyer's strategy. A correct level of incentive is very important and sales people must clearly understand that both the client and the company must achieve value before any deal is consummated.

Levels of incentive must be tied to achievable and attainable levels and goals. There must always be something for the salesperson to reach and always a further incentive throughout the sales structure. If the sales executive is able to “get” to an end result, then he or she will not be adequately motivated to reach even further and keep working.

Time management is essential and while a sales manager will undoubtedly have administrative elements to take care of, the company should make sure that he or she is able to complete these as efficiently as possible, using provided, high-efficiency tools as needed. Did you know that many sales executives actually spend less than 25% of their time in direct communication with clients?

We can see that for the sales team to be effective, each member must be adequately trained and furthermore must engage in a process of ongoing training. This will include not only product education but also sales technique and delivery elements as well as time management and application theory, with the science of personal inter-communication. To help get this right, engage pharma consulting experts.

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.