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Entire industries are operating on bits and pieces of sales acumen, without the awareness of longstanding principles and rationale. This lack of awareness yields trouble for the industries, as 'who can articulate what has been long forgotten'? Here, in a nutshell, is a brief translation of pharma sales practices, through the eyes and experience of the sales profession.
The pharmaceutical industry has repeatedly been under fire for its strategic targeting of physicians, its use of mass media advertising directing consumers to their physicians and the practice of pharmaceutical reps providing meals and gifts during their visits.
These, however, are standard practice in sales, and are based on the sales profession's tenants:
- Target and meet with the decision maker
- Share the necessary information for transactions to occur
- Secure the transaction
- Reinforce the relationship via continued provision of value and repetition of the benefits of working together.
- Repeat the transaction
Pharmaceutical Companies have indeed targeted physicians, the ones who facilitate the purchase of prescription drugs. They've done so through three powerful avenues: face to face meetings with doctors, mass media consumer ads that direct consumers to ask their doctor if this would be beneficial to their health and through the practice of "leave behinds:" promotional items and gifts.
Face to face meetings are the #1 choice of most sales professionals (telemarketing salespersons seek phone appointments with decision makers). It allows for the full spectrum of communication to occur
(2-way verbal and nonverbal), and allows for fewer interruptions (it's easy to open a door if someone is on the phone, while a little more intimidating if someone is in an office behind a closed door, or in a hallway having a conversation). It also allows for as much time to be spent as is necessary (if you're already with someone, and you have more questions, you're likely to ask them now rather than later).
Pharma reps have learned to take advantage of the times during the day doctors have to stop seeing patients … while they eat. The practice of meal delivery eliminates the down time from patient to eating that would have been taken by a trip to the cafeteria, a restaurant or even to the microwave to heat - and gives the rep more time with the chosen decision maker (the physician).
Mass-media consumer advertising has been very profitable for the pharmaceutical industry. Advising consumers to "ask their doctor" has indeed stimulated sales. One source placed ROI at four to one --
$4 in sales for every $1 spent on advertising. That's a huge reason to continue marketing in that manner !
Promotional items and gifts have been used for thousands of years - our own human nature seeks and stows keepsakes of interactions. Deeper in the marketing definition, branding reminders do indeed act upon an individual's awareness of a brand. Thinking of the first instance of brand perception being akin to a grain of sand lodging in an oyster, repeated instances coat it into a valuable piece of real estate, suitable for harvest and banking.
The pharmaceutical industry knows that physicians are in a position to facilitate multiple transactions daily, and that there are constantly new medical breakthroughs, discoveries and care protocols. Without the pharma reps keeping the physicians abreast of different medicines and their indications, patients would have to solely rely on a very busy doctor's memory and research time / ability for their healing. One has to look only as far as small business ownership to see that leaving continuing education to an individual, even a competent decision maker, allows for 'other options' to creep in and take the time, money and effort of an otherwise valiant priority. Physicians have been constantly challenged to spend more time in direct patient care, to cut back on their non-paid activities in their communities, and to still maintain family and social relationships.
More extreme, some hospitals are limiting access to their physicians, stating they don't want undue influence on their patient care decisions. Book learning, and time spent delving into study after study with statistics will not be enough to sustain a physician's attention, knowledge and interaction within the recommended prescription genre. Education comes also from personal interaction and those who can 'cut to the chase' and communicate the essence of what's available, what key words might alert the physician to a need and what questions will help discern the corrective action. Treating the pharmaceutical industry as a pariah and cutting off access to physicians only sabotages the age-old relationship of diagnosis and remedy, and could significantly lower the quality of patient care.
Recent estimates of 6 pharma reps for every doctor sounds high to anyone not in sales, but to those in the sales profession, only 6 reps is really LOW, and makes the chances for a sale and larger marketshare much, much higher. For example, small business owners are called on in person or by phone some 20 or more times daily. As more and more kinds of services and products become available to businesses, the number per category rises, and it does indeed send the business owner into a territorial-defensive mode. Just tally up the number of television, radio, magazines and coupon services in your own city. Each one of them has a rep that calls on the local and regional businesses. You can also ask any CEO's Assistant, who will confirm that many times each day there are calls seeking an appointment with the person at the top. Only a few are granted access. A few come away successfully with transactions. Even fewer are able to achieve repeat business.
In a final note, Pharma is in a position to provide leadership to other sales organizations. The pharmaceutical industry clearly has state of the art systems in place where weekly sales numbers are tallied, analyzed and disseminated to the sales staff. Pharma reps can see immediately if their visits have had a noticeable impact on sales and are able to formulate the next round of profitability. If other industries adopted this system of immediate ROI determination, much greater accountability and streamlining of "what facilitates the transaction" could occur.
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