Customer Access and Representative Differentiation: Can we ever have dialogue?
Tom Stovall and Dusty Grainger, Stovall Grainger Inc.
Has access to your target customers always been so challenging? You know, the customers that are in your “high prescriber database”! You know, the database that every other company has as well as you! You know, the database that creates parity as opposed to competitive advantage! You know, the database that creates the inflexible call universe since the “targets” are surely the customers that can deliver the best return on the investment of your “detail time” and “lunch dollars”! In the not too recent past, access to physicians was not so difficult. As long as your company was reputable and your products were at least as good as the major competitor, coupled with your above average communication skills, and an ability to initiate and grow relationships, you could be assured that your call average would be acceptable and sales would follow. Today’s environment is different, and not only is access to physicians growing more difficult, but access to dialogue is even harder! And what makes the situation more critical is that most sales managers are pushing ever harder to increase the “share of voice” of their sales people by increasing numbers of calls. Have you ever had a physician tell you to “not ask me any questions and just tell me what you have”? Yet physicians tell us that they are much more likely to limit their time and dialogue with sales representatives…except for a few individuals who take a different approach! What is it that these “chosen few” possess that helps them to succeed where others are struggling?
What does the current healthcare economic environment look like for your “target customers”? How is the Institute on Medicine reports and the Leapfrog Group initiative impacting the way physicians prescribe or hospitals buy? Why might the current environment preclude dialogue with our customers? How might we approach customers differently in order to achieve higher-level dialogue?
The World for Healthcare Providers has changed dramatically.
“As a physician there isn’t much that I haven’t already seen in my 20 years of practice. If I look at my typical day, only about 15-20% of my time is spent on the clinical side of the practice. The other 80-85% is spent on the business-side of this enterprise. And to be honest, physicians aren’t so good at that!”
This comment was made during a recent interview with one who would be considered a “high decile” physician for most companies. The problem, at least from this physician’s perspective, is that most sales people don’t seem to understand much about the “business” of healthcare, either. That means that this doctor expects only to hear about the clinical features and benefits of a particular product and doesn’t hear too much about how products or value-added services can help him or her to address business issues.
As a well-targeted physician, he is not alone. Sales people all intent on spending time with him or his clinical staff bombard the office. They know of his potential impact on products and almost every conceivable method of seeing him has been explored, from lunches to trips to closet organizers has been employed. Many of these doctor-rep encounters result in what we refer to as the “bump-and-howdy” in the hallway. This is nothing much more than a brief greeting, a short one-sided product pitch, and a signature for samples. And candidly, there is not too much value in this interaction for either the physician or the representative…but there is a signature and, thus, a call. Physicians have stated that they sometimes believe that reps are paid for getting the signatures as opposed to selling product!
Like many physicians, time is at a premium. With that in mind, these “high decile” doctors are becoming much more difficult to see. However, even the most difficult “no-see” physician tells us that she does have certain sales professionals who get quality time. What is the secret to their success in gaining access to time and dialogue with physicians?
Healthcare Providers expect a more informed sales professional.
“Well, it isn’t the lunches!”
It seems that those with access demonstrate a much more sophisticated and broad view of the business challenges their physicians, pharmacists, and nurses are facing. They spend time on a regular basis studying what is going on in the healthcare provider side of the business. They are aware of the current key success factors for their customers. Ask yourself this question: Could I articulate the current major challenged being faced by doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab techs, or hospital administrators? If I dared to ask a question regarding key challenges faced by my customer, would I be conversant enough in the subject to “back up” my probe with enough knowledge to have credibility in the dialogue? Or would I just be taking a guess?
One physician responded that she was very impressed with the technical knowledge level demonstrated by sales people calling on her today. However, she also mentioned that not one of them had ever taken the initiative to speak with her or her staff about the business challenges she faced. Her perspective is that if they did know those issues, they might be able to come up with ways that they could improve both their clinical outcomes and their business performance.
She continued to say that a sales person with that understanding would certainly set him or herself apart from the vast number of people with whom she speaks.
They would certainly be on her “short list” of sales people gaining time and dialogue with her and her staff.
Your Knowledge Base must include a deeper understanding of the “business” of healthcare
How would you respond if you walked into a physician’s office and the doctor asked you about your product’s potential financial impact on his “at risk” patients? What if a pharmacist asked you to articulate the differences or similarities that you see between DRGs and APCs or the OPPS, especially regarding your product’s value in each? Could you answer that? Could you easily articulate and position a value-added resource you have that could improve the efficiency of a physician’s practice?
These are all real life examples of the dialogue level that we have engaged your customers in during recent filed trips with sales representatives. All it takes is just a bit of additional preparation to take the dialogue to an even higher level of pertinence. Granted, we generated some of these discussions, but the result of this kind of dialogue is a higher level of credibility and stronger relationships. These are all issues that your customers are facing. Could your products and value-added services be aligned to meet these new “buying criteria?”
The Customer’s Buying Criteria is evolving
With the evolution of healthcare comes a new paradigm for providers…one based upon clinical and financial outcomes. So, the basis for a customer’s product recommendations is going to be heavily weighted on the financial side with quality of care, improved efficiencies, and improved outcomes all part of the equation.
With this in mind, the sales consultant with the greatest access to time and dialogue will be the one with a balanced understanding of clinical and financial drivers. She will spend just as much time studying the key business issues affecting her customers (perhaps by reading “Modern Healthcare” or “American Medical News” in hardcopy or at their respective websites) as she does reading the clinical papers trumpeting her products.
This new higher-level sales strategist will look for new, creative ways to impact his customers’ clinical and business performance. He will ask other questions that lead to a more thorough understanding of the customer’s challenges both clinically and financially.
“Doctor, I recently read a book about the evolution of what was called ‘organized delivery systems’. I know that this area of the country has experimented with many different ways of managing the at risk patient. From your perspective as a physician in the middle of all of this, how do you see your practice evolving the meet these changes and challenges?”
Many will question the need to have this kind of dialogue. Those who are going to compete in the new healthcare arena will realize that they cannot do it without having this level of understanding!
The Key to improving access to time and dialogue is in providing Clinical AND Business Value
With this new level of understanding, these strategic sales consultants will not only position themselves and their products at a higher level, but they will “close the door” to those who still insist on quantity over quality in their interactions with customers. Their customers will see the value in spending time with individuals who have this level of knowledge and expertise. And since the customer’s available time to meet with sales people is going to get tighter and tighter, with whom do you think they would prefer to spend it? With whom would you spend your time if you were a physician?
The Prescription for Greater Access
So what can you begin to do to increase your ability to succeed in this dynamic marketplace? Get out of your comfort zone! We asked one Chief Financial Officer for a very large integrated delivery system what he thought sales people could do in order to gain a long-term business relationship with him and his system. His reply was to “…come around to our side of the table in the very early stages of the relationship. Learn about our budgeting process and our strategic plans. If sales people knew this from the beginning, they may be able to help us to improve our clinical and our business performance in ways that we haven’t considered before. They could visit the website of the Healthcare Financial Management Association and learn of our efforts to address both quality and costs. If they could do these kinds of things, I think that would provide real value to both of us and our organizations.”
Consider these ideas for gaining more meaningful dialogue with your key customers:
- Realize that moving from the “bump and howdy” to a level of sincere dialogue will take time.
- Understand that your customers will need to feel comfortable that you are sincere in desire to gain additional insights into their clinical and economic issues. Dialogue is an earned right!
- Make a commitment of time …perhaps thirty minutes per week devoted to understanding key issues that transcend the seven to fifteen pennies of the healthcare dollar deployed to pharmaceuticals. Rest certain that it is not the pennies deployed for pharmaceuticals that keep your customers awake at night!
- Recognize that in dialogue, you will not always know what answer you will get from your customer. This is counter intuitive to our “needs selling” paradigm that dictates questioning only grounded in issues and challenges that we already have solutions in the bag as a remedy.
- Unlike the outcome of the “bump and howdy” quick hit at the sample closet, dialogue is a continuum that builds over time. Solutions and quick remedies that we offer in a rapid sequence features and benefits blurb are not part and parcel dialogue. Do not be quick to offer solutions. Seek more thorough understanding before prescribing a solution.
- Seeking dialogue with select key customers will not derail your call rate! Think about it…In the course of a typical workweek, we can all find that additional window of time to have an average of two higher-level interactions.
- Do not confine this effort to your physician customers. Administrative professionals as well as Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants should be part of your constituency. As a matter of fact, these customers are friendly and very approachable, thus representing a great place to gain confidence in dialogue.
- Last but not least, consider this…After work, when you are with family and friends, do you talk to them the same way that you do your customers? Do you use the same canned techniques to persuade family and friends to see your point of view? If the answer is no, then why do we choose to do this with our customers?
Without a doubt, we are in the midst of a strategic inflection point in the age of healthcare for both providers and for you. It is a time of crisis for many of our customers. The Chinese symbol for “crisis” is made up of two separate symbols. One means “danger” and the other means “opportunity.” Not one or the other, but both. For those who are looking for a higher level of relationship with their customers and for greater success, this is a time of opportunity and a time of danger. Those who stick with the old paradigm will find great danger ahead. Those who take a more strategic and consultative approach with their customers will find great opportunity both professionally and personally.
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