Focus Magazine - Winter 2014 - 36

MEMBERSOLUTIONS

organization. They guide them
through the sales training experience
by walking them through their
materials and setting their calendar for
the next several weeks up to and
through training. They do this in
concert with district manager input."
Derek Lee, director, training and
development, Ikaria, highlighted both
a partnership with sales and alignment
of training objectives. Lee stated,
"Regional field trainers report to
regional business directors, who report
to the VP of sales, I report to the VP of
sales, ensuring alignment of training
objectives."
Flip Williams, senior oncology
sales specialist and regional sales
trainer at Bayer Healthcare
Pharmaceuticals, plays a dual role as a
sales representative and field trainer.
Williams has been supporting in house
training, training of new hires and
leads workshops at sales meetings.
"Field trainers provide a valuable
service based on field perspectives to
help get new hires up and running
efficiently," Williams said.
Aptalis Pharma, under the
leadership of Vicki Colman, senior
manager, sales training, utilizes
experienced sales representatives who
are high performers in a field trainer
role. Aptalis focuses on sales

representatives who are delivering the
sales budget and desire additional
responsibilities in this key role to
mentor new hires, lead home study and
deliver training at sales meetings.
Connie Murray, director sales
training & clinical education, B. Braun
Medical, shared that in addition to
supporting the new hire training
program through a dotted line
reporting structure to sales training,
field trainers played a key role in a
major restructure.
"Product experts were utilized
across the country to ensure the
transition process went well," Murray
said.

Skill Development
One constant across the many
flavors of field-based trainers is the
extensive development programs each
company has in place to grow the skills
of the trainers. Tom Crouser, senior
training manager, management and
leadership development of Genentech,
shared the extensive development
program for field-based trainers.
Genentech offers training in
compliance, brand specific coaching
and facilitation for the newly appointed
field-based trainers. The tenured team
will attend a field trainer summit to
continue the advancement of their
skills. Genentech utilizes the
SPBT offerings: Associate
membership and the annual
conference to provide
additional development
opportunities for the fieldbased trainers.
According to Colman,
they are not alone.
"In this role, field sales
trainers will have the opportunity to enhance their
leadership skills, emotional
intelligence and other people
skills, coaching and feedback, effective time management and will

gain a better understanding of the strategic
big picture surrounding Aptalis' business," Colman
said. "Individuals selected
will receive
specific training in key areas to
help better prepare
them for potential future
roles. This includes sales management,
in-house training, account management and marketing. Furthermore we
signed the entire field training team up
for an SPBT associate membership to
give them access to the training tools
provided by SPBT."
Both Aust and Babbington of
Allergan noted that the field-based
trainers receive extensive development
utilizing SPBT offerings, Allergan
leadership development resources and
participate in an annual 360 feedback
process.
Lee noted that he signs up all the
field-based trainers for SPBT and that
they attend the annual conference as a
team.
"I feel it is one of the best ways to get
new trainers up to speed, in a society of
peers," he said.

Conclusion
Crouser summed up the consensus
of the group.
"We consider our field-based
trainers an extension of commercial
training & development in the field," he
said. "As marketplace dynamics
become increasingly complex, we must
ensure that our field-based trainers are
equipped with the skills necessary to
effectively train clinical specialists.
Everything our field-based trainers do
should always be in the best interest of
our employees, our customers, and
most importantly our patients." I

Dawn Brehm is SPBT's chief operating officer. Email Dawn at dbrehm@spbt.org.

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Focus Magazine - Winter 2014

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