With great power comes great profitability
They may not be the diabolical costumed maniacs you see in the movies, but supervillains are real and it is up to you to stop them (cape, tights, and superpowers optional). The villain is disease, and you and your customers are on the frontlines of a literal fight to save the world every single day. With the right approach to your infection prevention offerings, you can improve the health of your practice and become a hero to your accounts.
For many reps, the infection prevention category is an untapped source of power. In most cases the infection prevention category represents more than 30 percent of the total med-surg sales to a practice or a hospital. But for various reasons, many reps don’t see the category as a priority.
Reps may tend to shy away from the category because of the lack of regulatory and financial incentives for the markets served by their accounts. Now, possibly more than ever before, infection prevention is a priority in the acute care market. Acute care organizations are under tremendous pressure and highly incentivized to make infection prevention a priority. Like Metropolis has Superman, most of the acute care market is already “taken care of” by various GPOs, RPCs, and so on.
Yet while the acute care market may face the most regulatory pressure to step up its infection-prevention game, disease doesn’t limit itself to the emergency department. Physician groups and individual physician offices, dermatology offices, specialty services, long-term care facilities – the rest of the continuum of care is holding out for a hero.
Among reps there is a widespread (and inaccurate) view that infection prevention isn’t big enough or lucrative enough to prioritize. Most tend to think that the category only contains a few, low-dollar products like hand soaps, surface disinfectants, and personal protective equipment such as gloves or surgical masks. But those products are only the core of the infection prevention area. A complete infection prevention program includes each and every product that can be used to break the chain of infection.
Be the street-wise Hercules – fight the rising odds
So what would a complete infection prevention program look like? A robust infection prevention offering includes everything from the obvious products like gloves and surface disinfectant down to the everyday necessities. Every single practice and hospital has an essential need for many other related products like paper towels, toilet paper, facial tissue, and soap and/or sanitizer.
For example, nurses wash their hands countless times every day. It goes without saying that your infection prevention offering will need to include hand soap and sanitizers to stop any potential disease transmission during handwashing. But that soap isn’t doing your account any good if the first thing they touch after handwashing, paper towels, are exposed to cross contamination. To help your account truly break the chain of transmission in the hand-hygiene area, they are going to need more than just hand soap. A logical and ideal solution to such a dastardly threat is enclosed dispensers with touchless dispensing.
Such a dynamic duo is a winning situation for both your customer and you. Not only will your account benefit from reducing the likelihood of cross-contamination, but such dispensers also reduce waste and associated costs by cutting down on the over usage that can occur with pump soap and multifold towels.
There are opportunities like that all over the infection prevention category. Your accounts need these products every single day for their employees, patients, and visitors. The savvy rep will seize this opportunity and include all of those often-overlooked but essential products to their infection prevention program
Knowledge is power
Infection prevention can make you the most valuable rep to your practices. Knowledge is power. Talk to your practices about infection prevention. They no doubt understand the importance of infection prevention but they may not realize just how much they can actually do about it. Talk to them about how you and they can work together to assemble a complete infection prevention strategy. Alerting them to the need for and then providing them with a robust offering of infection prevention products and solutions will boost your repertoire and make you their hero.
You win as well. The infection prevention category is a great source of annual revenue. Whether it’s the threat is just the common cold or this year’s super-plague, infection prevention is a never ending fight. Since the category is not seasonal like many other products, it is a steady revenue stream, month in, month out. For instance, the covered dispenser solutions can create sticky and lasting business for you. Once that dispenser goes up on the wall it becomes an indispensable aspect of the account’s infection prevention practices. A quality dispenser may last for years, which means it is going to need years and years of refills. Think about it this way, when there is trouble in Gotham, they turn on the bat-signal. If you’ve established your hero credibility, when a practice needs a refill, they are going to come to you first to place those orders.
Excelsior!
With the right plan, you will directly improve the health of your customers’ practices. Implementing a complete infection prevention program will lead to both a healthier patient population as well as a healthier staff. Once you win their business, your accounts stay with you for years to come. That business doesn’t stop at the infection prevention category. By keeping their practice (literally) healthy and helping them deliver better patient care/outcomes, you will become the hero your accounts need. Going forward, whether it’s one of those top-dollar items, advice on various products, or anything in between, when that practice is in need, the first person they will look to is you, their friendly neighborhood sales rep!
Infection Prevention: Sponsored by GP