Healthcare systems arround the world are changing drastically as purse strings are tightened and patients gain greater voice. Pharma companies have taken this on board and are starting to align with their customers, with most moving sales teams into key account management roles or various KAM-type job titles. “But not that many companies are focusing on the skills required to talk to these customers,” says Gary Killington, managing director of PI Partnership.
For Killington, they are missing a trick because this isn’t about transactional selling any more: this is high-level communication where sales representatives act more like business consultants. “What has happened is representatives have had their job title changed, they have been given account planning training with a CRM that tells them who are the right people to talk to, but they haven’t got the skills set required for when they walk through the door to talk to these customers,” he explains. “Today it’s a business discussion – what your product can offer, what services you can add – not just a clinical conversation, as it had been in the past. And these are skills many representatives don’t necessarily have.”
So with a large proportion of representatives potentially having to cover primary, secondary and payer environments, the cracks are starting to show, Killington notes. Many, for example, are failing to position their company as a healthcare partner and are struggling to understand a value proposition – let alone pitch one, Killington says. “Often representatives are not sure what questions to ask and if they do ask the right questions they’re not sure what to do with the answers.”
Another issue is confusion around when to sell, Killington says. “There are more hoops to jump through before you can actually sell a product; you may need to change the environment for that drug from negative to neutral, or neutral to positive. Once you create a favourable landscape the KAM will be in a position to go in and sell the product – but companies focus on changing the environment and forget they have to go back and sell again at some point!”
Meanwhile, the introduction of clinical commissioning groups in the UK has been an interesting development for the salesforce and has put the family doctor back on the radar. But companies would be naïve to think this is a return to the old days, warns Killington. The focus might move back to the GP but “the salesforce will still have to up-skill because GPs are starting to add more managerial elements to their jobs, be it medicines management or commissioning. All representatives will need to think about how to handle the two hats they might wear,” he says.
Killington is concerned these skill gaps will pose a stumbling block for pharma and says it is critical that companies future-proof their sales teams to survive in the current healthcare environment – as well as to ensure their medicines are approved and prescribed. “You can’t just read a book on KAM and apply it to pharma,” he says. He also points out that KAMs from outside industry have the ability to hit the ground running without the scientific background. For this reason, PI Partnership has looked externally for inspiration and has – as Killington puts it – “pharmaceuticalised” the B2B skills required to take sales reps and turn them into business consultants.
The programmes offered by PI Partnership take an action- based learning approach, which are interactive, workshop-based with exercises and role-play built around the representatives’ own accounts that aren’t performing to the level they want. The firm uses actors and employs techniques such as theatre forum, as well as what is called an audience-impact director, to help teach the seven skills required.
The beauty of training in this way is it gives the representatives a dry run, explains Killington; it’s an opportunity to build, practice, role play and discuss their pitch, and then go away and apply the learnings. It also pushes their thinking to actually change their behaviour and do things differently, which can be a challenge particularly with mature experienced teams.
PI Partnership also works extensively with first-line sales managers globally to give them the training to improve in- call coaching and help plug the skills gap. Increasingly, many business managers are finding themselves back in the field with representatives doing in-call coaching, but Killington believes that spending more time in the field doesn’t necessarily improve coaching or call excellence. He notes: “It’s all about the quality of the coaching. Many managers were recruited with good analytical skills but that doesn’t mean they will be good at coaching.”
Equally these sales managers need to know the tricks for more effective value proposition pitching so it is important they have the same skills as their representatives, which means creating an observational environment. Here PI Partnership brings in healthcare professionals or payers, the company supplies representatives and by using viewing suites with one-way mirrors managers can observe the interactions taking place. “It’s creating an environment to be able to observe managers coaching sales calls and this develops coaching excellence,” Killington says.
With the days of hundreds – or indeed thousands – of representatives being replaced by smaller, targeted teams and the need for greater communication and specialist skills, Killington says “companies need to make the most out of the teams they have got.”