By Dr. Andrée K Bates, June 2011
With all the budget cuts in Pharma including in sales force, the pressure is on to unlock additional value
from the sales teams. CEOs are pushing for higher sales targets, while the competitive environment intensifies and more and more generic
competitors enter the fray. In light of this, in several of our recent analytics projects I have noticed an interesting thing; some companies
sales teams consistently outperform others no matter what drug they are promoting.
In light of this, in several of our recent analytics projects I have noticed an interesting aspect: some companies’ sales forces consistently outperform others no matter what drug they are promoting. We see this even when we tease out the impact on sales and market share from them and their co-promote partners separately also. When analyzing the drivers and data we see a secret emerging from these outperforming sales teams which can be used successfully by other teams.
Sales forces are a valuable asset to be managed, and unlock the value from - especially since they are one of the most expensive investments in the marketing mix. But, how should a Sales Director ascertain whether the sales force is deployed most effectively in light of the current market environment? Certainly many of the traditional measure - such as ‘Share of Voice’, ‘Benchmarking’ and ‘Implementing Best Practice’ - rarely maximize the value and impact of the sales team, and often leave the Sales Director unhappy with the results.
What is the secret of the high performing company teams?
Every sales team brings their own unique strengths and weaknesses to their market, so the key to unlocking their value is to uncover what makes each team strong, and seeing which of those strengths are actually market drivers rather than simply adopting an ‘Larger SOV’, or ‘best practices’, approach. These, of course, can be easily uncovered using an approach such as Eularis’ 94.8 Analytics. In examining this further, we note that there are 4 key things to consider when striving to unlock maximum value from your sales team:
1. Start with customer drivers rather than sales team issues
We see that Sales Directors are very good at identifying issues within their organization (territory boundaries, lack of accountability, confused roles, etc) and finding ways to solve these problems. However, by starting here, Sales Directors are missing a few key issues; firstly, that sales potential varies across customers and this continues to change in a market as dynamic as Pharmaceuticals, and secondly, that focusing on the customer segments and their sales force drivers will result in a sales force structure and approach that is grounded in buying behavior as opposed to organizational behavior.
2. Define Your Company’s ‘Good’ rather than benchmarking on another Company’s
We see a lot of ‘Industry Best Practices’ being mentioned at conferences and internally within companies. This is good for identifying a ‘best in class’ and replicating a model but it defines success according to another company or teams needs and results. To be ‘best in class’ for your company, you need to have your own perspective on what is a good sales model for your customers and your team, consider factors such as the current market environment and, most importantly, your customers’ prescribing/buying levers in the current market environment and how your team matches up to these.
3. Maximize Good Share of Voice, not Any Share of Voice
We do find an obsession with or a focus on ‘Share of Voice’ metrics rather tiresome. It is essentially saying ‘who shouts loudest wins’. But what if what they are shouting is not moving prescribing? I have seen this in several of our analytics project,s where a client has said “I don’t understand, we have the highest Share of Voice” but when you look at the content of that, they are not focused on the real market drivers for that therapeutic category or their customers. If you are going to focus and measure Share of Voice, why not focus on GOOD Share of Voice rather than any old Share of Voice?
4. Build institutional capabilities, not just individual skills
A lot is spent on maximizing individual sales rep results (in-field coaching, role playing, etc) but less appears to be invested in collective knowledge on what works and doesn’t work, and what surpasses the individual capability in the field. If you are focused on improving individual reps behavior for them, what happens when they move companies? Like sales reps already have, companies need a learning agenda to collectively improve the overall capability of the company.
If the sales forces are rearmed effectively, Sales Directors can expect to see strong results including
- Revenue and market share gains of typically 15-20% (ask us to see individual rep improvement case studies!)
- higher conversion and retention of the most valuable customers
- broader alignment and participation of the entire company in the selling effort
- continued competitive advantages in those competences vital to serving their customers, allocation of sales team resources and managing the sales force themselves
So, where to from here?
Firstly, you need to diagnose your current sales force impact (and if involved in a co-promote, you also need to analyze the relative impact of each company team and how to enhance the overall effectiveness of these. Consider the following:
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- Are their strengths drivers for your target customer segments or not?
- Are their weaknesses drivers for your target customer segments or not?
- What can you do across your sales teams to capitalize on the driver behaviors?
- How can you de-emphasize the non-driver behaviors?
- By doing this by a certain amount, what will that mean in terms of market share gain or loss?
If these ideas resonate with you, please contact the author, Dr Andree K Bates, at Eularis: http://www.eularis.com.