Dear Friends,
Welcome to Volume II, Issue II, 15th August 2011, of ‘The Enablers’.
In this issue, we discuss Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE).
SFE is eliminating or minimizing unproductive efforts like meeting low-value prescribers, trying to sell to a wrong prospect and so on.
Achieving the highest effectiveness during a call is one of the prime roles of a first-line manager. Evaluating present performance and then identifying performance improvement opportunities is the skill you as first-line manager have to master to improve SFE.
Wishing you all the best to improve the SFE of your team!
Vivek Hattangadi
15th August 2011
First-line manager and Sales Force Effectiveness
The largest spend in pharma sales and marketing is usually on the sales force; yet in many pharma companies, the returns on this investment are not particularly strong. Developing an effective sales force can enhance returns. Sales Force Effectiveness means developing an outstanding sales force which can leverage the marketing tools to optimize productivity - through prescription generation. Some tools include the effective joint field work by managers, sales promotional material, cycle meetings and training programs and many more.
A high quality sales force alone can assure high performance in today’s complex and highly competitive environment. The power of the sales force continues to be and will remain a significant factor. An inefficient sales force can have a massive negative effect on its brands and. Incompetent sales teams can wreak havoc on market share.
Sales force effectiveness and training are sometimes thought to be synonyms, but it is not so. Sales force effectiveness means to increase productivity, to cut expenditure and boost the morale of the field force. SFE is to ensure that every single minute a medical representative spends with the doctor is optimized. On the other hand, training is focus on developing hard and soft skills, line manager coaching process and development. Training can be only one of the elements of sales force effectiveness. Sales force effectiveness cannot be considered as training function alone.
The most important driver of sales force effectiveness is the quality of leadership provided by the first-line managers. Others include customer knowledge, skills and capabilities to succeed along with appropriate field activities, strategy execution management and communication. Let us examine each of these drivers of SFE.
| Leadership skills: The strength of the first-line managers is the strength of the organization. Poor quality first-line managers stifle the success if an organization. The first-line managers can provide strong leadership when they have vision and the conviction to make their vision a reality. A first-line manager can have his own vision statement which is aligned with that of his organization. Good leadership for sales force effectiveness requires deep human qualities, beyond conservative concepts of authority. Good leaders are an enabling force. Perhaps the concept of ‘Servant Leadership’ advocated by Chanakya and modernized by Robert Greenleaf should be considered. |
| Customer knowledge: It means understanding your prescribers inside out, so that you can manage and nurture them and get the best output. Many first-line managers do have knowledge of their prescribers/potential prescribers, but frequently this is in a fragmented form and difficult to share or analyze. Often it is incomplete. Customer knowledge includes collection of information and viewpoints that a first-line manager has about his doctors. The role of customer knowledge management is to capture and organize this data to allow it to be shared and discussed with the team. Customer knowledge also means the compilation of information to get the insight you need to build long-lasting relationships with the customers. |
| Skills and capabilities: Everyone has skills and capabilities. Some are your unique aptitudes and talents. You will need many 21st century skills to stay alive in today’s high competitive environment. The important thing to remember is that skills and capabilities can be added or improved upon through training, and experience. Continue to develop and enhance your skills, and career opportunities will come your way. Functional skills like time management and prioritization skills, skills to manage human resources and to manage money are the ones a first-line manager should hone up for enhancing sales force effectiveness. |
| Strategy execution management: Strategy execution is the buzz word in the management circles today. Strategy Execution Management is the set of tools and processes to translate the organization’s strategy and business plan into reality. It is not just accomplishing a task or a goal, but also achieving the underlying business objectives. A good execution management will focus on WHAT as well as HOW of an achievement. If an organization has to deliver superior performance, without doubt, the people accountable for strategy execution – the 1st line managers hold the key. A good first-line manager knows the strategies of the organization by heart and then ensures that his team has understood it well so that they execute them effectively. |
| Communication: Getting your message across in a way that is clear and coherent to everyone that is listening is a critical skill for the first-line manager in developing sales force effectiveness. Effective sales force communication helps to bring about a high performing field sales force. However, the field force spends a lot of time on unnecessary or redundant communication. This wasted time affects sales force effectiveness and undermines the company performance. Communication is a skill area which a first-line manager needs to master to enhance sales force effectiveness. |
Conclusion: An effective sales force can make all the difference, turning an average performing company a leader in the IPI. isn’t it time you put in your efforts to improve the effectiveness of your team?
Ask yourself:
· Have I been able to identify the factors in my team which can contribute to improving SFE?
· Do I or my team spend on unproductive activities?
· Have I been able to identify improvement opportunities?
| Golden quotes |
| Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.- Anon |
| The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. – Stephen Covey |
| Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week. – Charles Richards |
| Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing. - Thomson Jefferson |
| If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got. - Lee Iacocca |
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