Useful Ideas On Why New Sales Skills Are Required

Will the pharmaceutical sales team of the future be composed of people who sit behind a computer terminal for the majority of their time, only making "road trips" when they are almost guaranteed to be highly productive? After all, this is what the Web 2.0 revolution is supposed to achieve for us, isn't it? You could argue that any virtual style of communication is far from likely to generate the kind of interpersonal bonding that is seen as being increasingly important in the realm of sales team effectiveness. Doesn't pharmaceutical marketing training revolve ever more around the one-on-one communication, and a real understanding of what drives the end user’s buying decision? A pharmaceutical consultant really understands how much of the buying decision is based on a relationship between the company and the buyer, which is enhanced by the interaction between the sales rep and the doctor. If we look at how culture and society works in some countries and regions, especially Latin America or Spain, for example, we see that business decisions are often highly biased, according to the strength of the interpersonal relationship.

Companies are now beginning to understand how important the information is which can be gleaned through social media interaction with their prospects and they should be able to integrate the end-user's information in a much more targeted, responsive and productive way, to ensure that they can communicate with healthcare prospects and clients efficiently. Virtual communication is going to be of far greater importance going forward, so it is up to the pharmaceutical consultancy to work out how the value message is going to be incorporated. This will require some effort, as we need to calculate how each aspect of information gathered can be used and indeed, how we're going to come up with this intelligence in the first place. In our fast-paced world, any meetings that would take place between the doctor and the sales rep would often be rather hurried and take place in a far from perfect environment. As such, a virtual style of communication could be seen as far more productive, as it would fit in with the schedules of each individual far more efficiently, by definition. There are a number of different styles of new communication available, including webinars and other multimedia approaches. Some pharmaceutical consultancy studies suggest that this could be a far more effective way of reaching the client and it almost goes without saying that this should be a more cost-effective way of doing so, by cutting out some of the costs involved and the lack of productivity involved with travelling. In the future, costs associated with the generation of sales could be reduced significantly, freeing resources to invest in virtual communication tools and software for both the company and its clients.

Pharmaceutical marketing training is beginning to change to take into account the latest communications methods. While the pharmaceutical consultant is responsible for educating the sales rep appropriately, these strategies need to be rolled out only at a pace appropriate from the client perspective. Personal communication will still be important, but the chances are good that productivity will be markedly increased when virtual communication becomes a staple of the sales representative’s world.

Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of L2L Consulting, specialising in enabling pharmaceutical companies to achieve new heights of productivity and performance, throughout all levels of management and revenue generating activities.