Peak Sales Force Effectiveness Requires The Proper Strategy

Proper incentivisation is critical to the effectiveness of an organisation's sales force. This must be correctly approached however, as it is often poorly thought out or even bypassed, leading to lacklustre results, a reduction in morale and the inefficient use of a key resource. It is not good enough for a pharmaceutical company to rest on its laurels when it comes to its creative ability, as it will be judged by the effectiveness of its sales and marketing team, which must be well trained. The team must not only be knowledgeable about the product, its features and benefits, but must be infused with the knowledge, techniques and strategies needed to exist and produce within a highly competitive commercial environment. Most pharmaceutical consultants have a wide range of experience themselves and know full well how to motivate, manage and process a sales team.

Far too often the act of a sale is construed as a perfect result. It is true to say that without sales nothing happens, but many different factors must be used to judge the absolute value of a sale. The sales executive may appear to be very efficient, but unless a meaningful relationship has been created between the buyer and the seller, the overall or net value of the transaction can be questioned. In this analysis, incentives must be prepared and deployed selectively, with the aim of achieving a “win-win” solution all around.

Productivity generally increases if an individual is incentivised, as this is within our nature. Create sensible goals to move the sales force forward. If this is handled correctly it will create a volatile and effective environment, but it can also be detrimental if handled poorly. The goals set should represent a journey rather than the destination and multi-tiered targets should encourage, but always lead to a “carrot” which is just out of reach. In this way, the sales executive will be always focused.

In most cases, pharmaceutical consulting firms tell us that sales executives spend the majority of their time on ancillary and sometimes mundane administrative work and a minority of their time in direct communication with prospects or engaged with client management. This is why time management should be considered as a top priority and company executives should never put onerous administrative and accounting burdens in front of their productive sales team. Indeed, if these boring tasks get completely out of control, certain personality types can rebel and this can have a serious, knock-on effect on creativity and achievements.

A sales force will only be really effective if a comprehensive training process is in place and the team member must feel that he or she is part of a dynamic organisation. While administrative burdens should be kept to a minimum as we have said, training must nevertheless be prioritised. This should include product awareness as well as methodology and techniques, and the latest procedures can be implemented through pharma consulting firms. Such companies have been proven to raise morale, cut out negative emotions, inject just the right amount of enthusiasm and draw on their extensive industry background.

Alan Gillies is the CEO of L2L Consulting, a cutting-edge pharma consultancy firm which specialises in optimising productivity and performance within international companies by applying tailored organisational strategies.