June 21, 2007 by dave.

In April, I had a chance to preview a recent study conducted by BioInformatics, LLC, a market research firm in Arlington, Virginia. The study was called, “Improving Sales Rep Performance … Life Scientists’ Perspectives”. I was intrigued with the findings as they relate to sales force effectiveness in the life science industry and you may be as well. The analysts gathered data from researchers in the life sciences about their perceptions of effective sales people and what they wanted from them. These researchers gave very clear responses about what they want from sales people, which we can use in hiring, training and marketing program design.

What Customers Want

1. demonstrations
2. training
3. troubleshooting
4. advice
5. individual pricing

What these customers want is pretty straightforward: they want demonstrations, training, troubleshooting, advice, and individualized pricing. So what’s a sales person to do about this when he or she needs to grow existing business, launch new products and fight off the competition?

Finding Mutual Benefit

Often a good solution is to look for mutual benefit … providing what customers want will give sales people access and enable them to do the other work to help increase sales of the full portfolio. Below are some specific suggestions:

• give a demonstration or seminar showcasing a new technique, and along with it showcase established products. Use “giveaway reminders” for older products that are difficult to include in technical conversations.
• troubleshoot customers’ problems; bring in an expert by phone or in person if needed. While you are engaged, asked questions about the direction of their research, other products they are using, problems they have encountered.
• connect with your technical service department to find out what your customers are calling about and the advice that is being given. Help to spread the word among your contacts.
• give excellent advice: understand the work your customers are doing and the problems they have; understand all the available products and services and be able to fit the best solution to each person’s specific need.
• use pricing discussions to find out how much customers buy in various categories and why they have chosen a particular approach. Find out what competitors are established in the lab. Ask for information and uncover opportunity during the process.
• assign someone other than a sales person to do the quotation paperwork, and have the sales person focus on handling the customer interface. Don’t send customers to a website or a customer service agent for pricing; keep the salesperson in the chain of communication.

The Role of Managers

How can managers help sales people stay on the path of meeting these customer needs? First, we need to make sure we hire the kind of people who can be trained to give demonstrations, troubleshoot problems, and give valuable advice on product selection. Next, we can use our creativity to find ways to develop demonstrations and training seminars for products. Putting together a kit with all the needed materials goes a long way toward helping people implement. Next, we need to train people to understand both the technical background and the communication skills needed to deliver the information. Train them also on the connections between new and existing products; show them how it all fits together.

And as you send them out to implement, don’t forget to ask everyone to report regularly on their success. If each sales person reports to their manager, and then each manager summarizes and reports in turn to their director at the end of every week, it becomes very clear to everyone what the organization wants to see. Out of this process will come the success stories that provide fine-tuning to the strategy and encouragement to those who are struggling.

Zig Ziglar is famous for saying that the more you give people what they really want, the more they will give you what you really want. In order to give customers what they really want, we need to develop a plan, train the people and then implement the plan!

If we can help with you with this in your organization, just let us know.

good selling,
Dave

Technical Sales Consultants LLC
www.techsalesconsultants.com

© 2007 Technical Sales Consultants, LLC

Posted in sales training, sales process, technical sales, research, sales, lifescience | Print | No Comments »

March 6, 2007 by dave.

A recent study of sales force perceptions by GS Discovery has some findings that certainly caught my interest. And I think they will interest more than a few of you in the Life Science Industry. This study may be the first of its kind for this industry

The study highlights some findings which deserve immediate attention from sales and marketing executives. More than that, the findings represent a “call to action” for executives in the life science industry. Because I believe these factors will be important to your business, I want to take a moment to share my perspective on the findings.

There are some “red flags” in the study that show up both in customer relationships and in internal management practices:

Red Flags

1. Sales people don’t feel they get enough time with their customers.
2. Competition is increasing and sales people want more competitive product information.
3. Credibility with customers is declining.
4. Mergers and major reorganizations are disrupting customer relationships.
5. Most sales people aren’t convinced that they are working for the best company, and even though satisfaction is quite high, they don’t expect to stay very long.
6. Almost half the respondents feel their compensation is either not fair or not competitive

The first four points are primarily customer relationship problems. All raise red flags for the future of life science companies’ relationships with their customers. In fact, the first one, “decreasing time with customers” kills companies. And this threat follows directly from sales people earning less credibility with customers, increasing focus on competition, and increasing turnover of sales people from reorganization. As the industry becomes more competitive and companies are more focused on their own overstuffed product lines, sales people begin to look less like trusted consultants and more like the path to a discount. This decline in credibility has occurred in many industries, and it is a one-way street. This is the first call to action: let’s hit the brakes and steer in the other direction.

Which other direction? Remember Macy’s surprising and most effective sales tool in “Miracle on 34th Street”? It was as simple as knowing the market and being willing to recommend whatever the customer needed … even a competitor’s product if yours couldn’t meet the need. To get more time with customers, we must equip sales people to bring more value to their relationships. First, we hire people who have solid experience working in labs, just like their customers do, and then train them to understand the choices and trade-offs their customers have to make, as well as how their own products fit. Just reciting features and benefits isn’t enough. We make sure sales people are consultants and not just order-takers. We try not damage their credibility by asking them to repeatedly pull business forward with favors and discounts to make the quarterly goals.

The Call to Action

• Hire people with solid experience at the lab bench to sell technical products.
• Train them to understand the customer’s perspective and how their own products fit.
• Make sure they are consultants and not just “order takers”.
• Teach them to sell, but to do so ethically and credibly.
• Make it worth their while to stay for the long term; keep your product innovation, training and compensation at the leading edge of your industry.

That said, they still have to sell, and consulting isn’t the same as selling. We need to train people to give good advice, but then press for specific action, to leverage relationships and cover all the buying influences. It’s not easy to do both, but it’s not impossible. That’s what the best sales people have always done.

The second eye-opener in this study is the reminder that good sales people have lots of options and many sources of information in the life science industry. They are constantly looking at the industry and making career choices based on who has the best products, the best compensation, or the best training for the future, to name just a few factors. They listen not just to their management but to recruiters, other sales people and their customers. It is easier to lose good people than we might think, especially to a sharp sales manager who is intent on building a strong team. Reorganization makes our people more vulnerable to competitive recruiting; so do flawed compensation plans and overly ambitious revenue goals. The resulting job-hopping by cynical sales people compounds the credibility problem with customers and erodes confidence in the entire industry.

The best sales managers learn to recruit the best people, to train them well and continually work to make them want to stay for the long haul. They create loyalty by developing people, coaching and teaching business skills that are valuable. They use their influence with management to keep innovation flowing to the product line and to keep training and sales compensation at the leading edge.

While we see red flags in these study results, we also have answers and antidotes to address them. We have resources in training groups, research departments, human resource groups and a vast array of agency and consulting options. This study will make a great topic at an upcoming strategic planning meeting. Get your team started assessing the situation and generating ideas right away. Let me know how we can help you.

Good Selling,
Dave

Technical Sales Consultants, LLC
www.techsalesconsultants.com

Reference: (see RepReview Life ScienceSM: The Life Science Supply Marketplace from a Sales Representative Perspective, December 2006, www.gs-discovery.com/home.html)

Note: While I’m not affiliated with GS Discovery, I do have a friend there and I made some pre-publication comments on the study, so you’ll see me quoted in the press release. The study highlights are available for download at the agency’s website, http://www.gs-discovery.com/home.html; for a free copy of the full study, contact Mark Walker at GS.

Posted in advice, life science, sales training, technical sales, research, management, sales | Print | 1 Comment »