Scott Adams
You, the Quarterback
It’s back to school, back to doctor visits, back to flu, strep and all the other fun that comes with fall. This is my favorite time of year as the evenings cool and college football kicks off. It’s also the most exciting time of year for medical distribution. Your physician customers have returned from summer vacations and their patient visits are cranking up.
Speaking about football, for those of you that have had to sit through one of my presentations, you have heard me talk about the “Rep of the future” being “The Quarterback.” Today’s buyer is more informed and further down the buying path than ever before. As the quarterback, you must be in on every play, and you depend on each player on your team to help get across the goal line.
There is one more component that you need as the quarterback in today’s selling environment — content that draws the customer to you. This content is your playbook.
Repertoire Magazine goes to 6,500 distribution reps a month. How many times a day do you think this conversation happens among reps calling on their customers?
“Thank you for seeing me today. I’d like to get a list of all the products you buy, from your current supplier, and come back next week with a quote.”
My guess is it happens more times than we’d all like to admit.
This is where content selling can set you apart. What if you started your first visit this way? “Thank you for seeing me today. I’d like to understand more about your patient mix of private pay vs. Medicare. Wow, 40 percent of you mix is Medicare based? Has anyone discussed the Medicare payment changes on the horizon known as MACRA, and shown you products and services that can help improve your quality measures so you can increase your reimbursement in the coming years?”
You can do this with any subject that is important to your audience. It’s the way we are all going to have to start thinking and selling.
Our goal with Repertoire is to bring you content each month that helps you start to brand yourself as a content salesperson. This draws your customers closer and allows you to stop order-taking and start caring so that you sell more.
This month’s cover story is on flu. The best-in-class flu companies in our industry helped us with the cover story so that we are delivering you timely content to bring your customer. Several of these companies participated in the flu showcase insert that you can pull out and use as content with your customers. On a final note, be watching the Dail-eNews for short interviews I did with each of these companies during AACC to help prepare you for flu season.
Dedicated to the Industry,
Scott Adams