Focus Magazine - Spring 2012 - 34

SELLINGSKILLS

New Skills for a New World Order
I By Fredric Marshall ur customer’s world is changing, and many salespeople are struggling to keep up with those changes. In the past, the physician was the only decision maker and clinical factors were the main drivers in the treatment decision process. But today the physician is no longer the primary stakeholder in the process and non-clinical factors are playing an increasingly important role in the treatment decision. How do we prepare our salespeople to succeed in this new environment? What are the pivotal skills required for success in this new multi-stakeholder ecosystem? To answer this question, we conducted blinded eld rides with average and best-in-class performers across a wide variety of therapeutic areas including primary care, specialty and oncology sales representatives. In total we identi ed more than a dozen key behaviors that di erentiate the best salespeople in the world from their average counterparts. Many of these behaviors are exactly what you would expect: listening, probing, closing, objection handling and adapting the presentation. But there are several new behaviors

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which re ect the multi-stakeholder dynamics and non-clinical factors that increasingly control both the treatment decision and the total experience of using your products. Below is a snapshot of three of the new behaviors that de ne selling excellence in our customer’s brave new world.

Strategic Thinking
Perhaps the most important new behavior is the ability to think and act strategically. is includes analytical skills for drilling down into the plethora of reports sales reps have to identify opportunities for growth. But it also includes strategic planning skills for allocating time, energy and resources across multiple time horizons: this week, this month, this quarter, this half and this year.

ce call” where you “make nice” to the receptionist and nurse before zooming into the physician. is is about systematically scanning across the total continuum of care to pinpoint barriers to the appropriate use of your products in every corner of the practice and then strategically allocating the best resources to reduce or eliminate those barriers.

Social Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to get along with others, manage your own emotional state and recognizing the “emotional wake” you leave behind in an o ce. But social intelligence is about changing behavior. We saw a very strong correlation between a rep’s social intelligence and their e ectiveness in working across all the stakeholders in a practice to achieve change at the practice level, not simply at the physician level. e key to success in helping our salespeople succeed in this new world is to empower our mangers to select and coach to these new behaviors and in doing so create a brighter and more sustainable future for the patient, the practice and the healthcare providers we have the privilege of calling upon. I

Becoming a Practice Partner
e next key behavior is seeing the customer’s practice as a system of diagnosis, prior authorization and treatment support and partnering with all the stakeholders in that o ce to make sure that patients are owing smoothly through the system. is is not the traditional “total of-

Fred Marshall is the founder and CEO of Quantum Learning, Inc. Email Fred at fmarshall@quantumlearninginc.com.
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Focus Magazine - Spring 2012

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