Chief Learning Officer - April 2008 - (Page 34) Dutkiewicz said. “Our training is about what the underlying customer needs are. If our people can understand that, then they can start applying our product in a way that will get the maximum for the client. If you do a great job of selling, if your skills are wonderful, you may need little product knowledge, but when you need product knowledge, it better be really good. If I get to the end of a process and a person wants me to say how this particular file is built, I better be able to tell them. Otherwise, I might lose the credibility that I’ve gained through my consultative process.” Creating Effective Product-Based Training Sanofi-aventis takes a modular approach in the initial phase of its training. After a product receives FDA approval, the sales staff is trained on anatomy and physiology, the disease associated with the product, the clinical trials and the approved labeling. These four training elements are considered the product foundation and are taught through distance learning. While paper and online delivery are not as interactive as face-to-face training time, sanofi-aventis takes into account where its staff is, what is most accessible and where live instruction is best carried out. Because the staff is field based and doesn’t always have access to desktops throughout the day, sanofi-aventis has to give up some interactivity for flexibility in delivery. But Capaldi said sanofi-aventis also includes live, instructor-led sessions in its training suite. Sales employees need the opportunity to interact with one another, simulate the sales process and receive feedback from their superiors. In the pharmaceutical industry, this is especially important, as sales reps are dealing with physicians, and the access to those customers is limited. As a result, the company’s training program culminates in a national launch meeting where all sales professionals and their management come together. “Generally speaking, in the pharmaceutical industry, most companies will launch their products and train at that launch in a live setting,” Capaldi explained. “Once you leave that launch meeting, where you get all the tools to sell the product, then people are able to go into the field and promote the new product to the customer. If you look at it in those two phases, there’s the modular approach on the front end, which tends to be more http://www.teds.com http://www.teds.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.