Complexity and information overload are making it harder than ever for salespeople to execute brand strategy. The way sales reps communicate with physicians is woefully out of sync with the way physicians learn and incorporate new therapies into their practice. One of the unforeseen consequences of having almost 100,000 sales reps call on today’s physician community is the sheer volume of information physicians are asked to process. Physicians are responding by pretending to listen, limiting access, and doing their best to avoid the toxic syndrome known as “information overload.” At the same time, companies face the threat of shrinking product life cycles, quick-to-market generics, pricing and regulatory pressures, and a level of competitive background noise that feels increasingly difficult to overcome. Shifting Performance Drivers Changing markets and competitive dynamics are causing a shift in the performance drivers for success in the industry and putting the existing selling process, curriculum design, and linkage to brand strategy at risk of being out of sync with current market realities. But it doesn’t have to be so. The next generation of competitive advantage will come from identifying these new market and performance drivers and then aligning the sales process, brand strategy, and curriculum design to the current realities of selling biologics and pharmaceuticals. In the past, the industry relied on focus groups, surveys, and interviews to gather insight about the customer, the competition, and patient needs. Today, there is a need for a next generation of insight — direct observation of actual behavior — in three critical areas: • The behavioral differences between average sales performers and best-in-class competitors; • How physicians actually learn and incorporate new therapies into their practice; • How patients deal with disease and the impact treatment has on their lives and their behavior. Equipped with this deeper level of understanding, companies will be in a much better position to radically simplify, focus, and align their curriculum design, selling process, and brand strategy to create a measurable advantage. Average vs. Best-in-Class What are the behavioral differences between top performers and average performers? What are they doing that makes such a difference? Companies that identify the behavioral differences through direct observation — as opposed to interviews and focus groups — will have a distinct advantage in taking their selling processes and curriculum designs to the next level. How Physicians Learn Aligning message delivery with the way physicians actually learn and incorporate new therapies into their practice will result in faster adoption of a company’s products. Most sales representatives either drown the physician in too much information hoping that something will stick or deliver the same message over and over again. The result is that physicians are turning away from sales reps and limiting access. Ironically, physicians are hungry for easy to digest, immediately relevant information that is organized in a patient-centric way. The next generation of salesforce effectiveness is partly about reducing the number of sales calls it takes to change prescribing behavior. This means delivering the right message, at the right time, and in the right way so that physicians can immediately apply it to improving the quality of care they deliver to their patients. Simplify, Focus, and Align With an updated understanding of the new performance drivers for success, there is a need to create a simpler and more direct linkage between the knowledge provided to reps, the coaching and sales process deployed, and their ability to compete and win. From the perspective of sales training, this will help create greater value for customers by delivering better reps to the field who execute the brand strategy, create competitive differentiation, and drive changes in prescribing behavior. Fred Marshall President Quantum Learning Inc., Newtown, Pa., is a research-based sales training and consulting firm with advanced tools that help reps move from average to best-in-class. For more information, visit quantumresults.com. Simplify, Focus, and Align the Sales Process: New Performance Drivers for Success

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