In a point-and-click world, it’s up to the rep to make a difference
Healthcare providers have more information and power at their fingertips today than ever before. Online sellers, most recently, Amazon, are making a bid for their business.
So, what does a sales rep bring to the table? A sense of understanding, empathy and compassion. A desire to learn and to serve, and a sense of accomplishment when they help their customers succeed. Throw in some technology, and you have a sales force that providers can’t be without.
Repertoire talked to three manufacturers who agree. They are:
- Shawn Austin, vice president of sales, BD Diagnostic Systems Non-Acute Business.
- Jason Dukarm, group marketing manager, Point-of-Care, cobas Liat & Channel Marketing, Roche Diagnostics Corp.
- Jack Moran, managing partner, MedTech/MedCare, LLC.
Repertoire: Name a few ways in which tomorrow’s manufacturer rep must demonstrate their value to the millennial-generation customer, who’s used to a convenient, point-and-click world.
Shawn Austin: First, reps have to be prepared and skilled in offering specific market insights and professional consultation services outside what can be reached on the web and in the general market domain. Customers are much better informed than they have ever been.
Second, reps should be able to demonstrate a personal investment and customized knowledge of solutions for each customer. Whether realized or perceived, customers require a higher level of customized consultation for their account specifics. They require customized solutions.
And third, reps should be open to responding and communicating outside the traditional business times and communication paths. Customers expect near real-time responses and actions. Overall, our millennial customers value relationships, but they view response time and access to their representatives with different expectations.
Jason Dukarm: First, because information is available at customers’ fingertips today, tomorrow’s manufacturer rep must be able to understand the social and digital forces that are influencing this audience. For example, my view is that millennial-generation customers form opinions quickly, given their high adoption of social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others. As a result, it’s important for manufacturer reps to adopt a similar level of engagement with social platforms in order to be seen as “relevant” to those audiences, but even more so, to create their own level of professional promotion to garner their own circle of influencers.
Second, reps need to grasp the influence of the broader digital world of purchasing and e-commerce. This generation of buyers seeks peer-reviewed opinions before entering any buying decision, so the manufacturing rep would be wise to monitor and leverage the power of strong online customer networks and advocates, as well as understand the potential influence of adversaries on adoption or acquisition of their products.
Third, this dramatic evolution in the buying process reinforces the need for reps to shift their understanding of their role. They need to evolve from simply facilitating a transaction to being a value-based consultant who can clearly articulate messages that differentiate their solutions in a way that enables customers to translate that value back to their own organizations, especially as it relates to financial savings or operational impact.
Jack Moran: Relationships matter, but today’s customers place less value on those relationships and more on data. Reps can gain credibility with their accounts by using that data to learn more about them prior to the sales call.
Repertoire: What new skills will your reps need to acquire, particularly those who have been used to one way of working with customers and potential customers?
Austin: A sales representative’s agility and breadth of knowledge outside the traditional product features/benefit are a must. It is no longer good enough to simply know your product and the competitors. Sales representatives have to be able to demonstrate insight into a customer’s largest challenges, reimbursement trends, upcoming market changes and be able to positively impact their customer’s bottom line.
Dukarm: Expediting the evolution to being a value-based consultant has been critical for our reps, so we’re continuously stepping up our game across our level of sales execution. For instance, we’ve made key training investments to help our teams better understand the impact of healthcare reforms and other market forces, so that they can turn these customer challenges into opportunities. As part of the evolution to selling solutions instead of products, we have also created cross-portfolio initiatives related to what we call clinical focus areas, such as antibiotic stewardship, where deeper conversations can be held with a broader spectrum of buying influences about issues of concern that are related to more than individual products.
We want our customers to thrive in this new healthcare environment and look to Roche to help them solve their problems. In terms of skills, we never stop emphasizing the basics of blocking and tackling on the front lines. But beyond this, our reps are sharpening their engagement skills and moving outside of the lab to other key stakeholders who are driving core health system initiatives.
For healthcare providers, the move from fee-for-service reimbursement to value-based care is as much about cost avoidance as it is about revenue generation. So our teams are trying to form consultant partnerships with our customers, enabling us to gain deeper insights, ask them tough questions, and present alternative ways to help them envision their new state.
Moran: In the past, we would show up at an account with the distributor rep, then spend a lot of time learning more about the account. Today, before such meetings, our reps have already invested time in the office to learn about the customer. They’re saying, “If I’m going to that meeting, I need to make sure I know more than I have to know.” That’s very much a new skill, versus just being really good at talking about products and forming relationships. Yes, we need to do all that today. But doing our homework is critical.
Repertoire: What new skills will be needed on the part of your distributor partners?
Austin: We continue to see additional value in the distribution partners who are training and guiding their teams on strategic planning and targeting with their manufacturers. The ability for distribution reps to efficiently point to strategic opportunities for the manufacturer and demonstrate a command of their local market helps with time management and the resource limitations.
Dukarm: We’re all in this together, and our reliance on distribution partners to help position our solutions is vital to our growth in the market. We hear from our partners every day of their willingness to stay educated on how the payer landscape and regulatory environment are changing and impacting buying decisions.
I think service delivery will continue to be the single most valuable requirement to the customer. Distributor reps know this, as many of them have long-standing relationships with their customers. Having said that, remaining static in knowledge is not an option for them. It’s critical to continue seeking out new and inventive ways to bring enhanced value to customers, and the reps that can elevate conversations beyond the product to a solution sale, which addresses higher-level problem, will be most successful in this environment.
Repertoire: Some manufacturers are stressing the importance to their reps of ride-days with distributors. Can you talk about the value of ride-alongs in today’s point-and-click world?
Austin: BD Diagnostic Systems has very much evolved our approach and focus with distribution in the non-acute space. We have recently formed a Non-Acute Diagnostic Systems sales force. We entered into that investment with a mindset of treating our distributors like a customer and expanding our reach via a focused, disciplined approach with distribution. All aspects of the healthcare continuum are being asked to do more with less, and medical technology companies are no different. Our ability to partner with distribution partners from the local field level to a corporate level allows for enhanced efficiency and focus. We simply needed to change with the market demands and leverage the value of distribution better in our space.
Dukarm: Lately Roche has been emphasizing the importance of ride-days with distributor reps because they provide many great benefits to both parties. Business relationships start with common interest, trust, and feeling confident that both parties have shared goals. Ride-days also present the chance for reinforcement of strategic territory planning. Getting in the car together creates the best setting for all of those things to happen, and whether it’s a cold call or pre-planned sales call, driving the sales opportunity forward is always a positive experience.
We recognize that our distributor partners are juggling a million balls and thousands of products. Beyond just getting “air-time” with them, it’s truly about winning together and solving customer problems. That can only happen when strong collaboration occurs and a shared understanding of roles and ownership is in place. The areas where we are winning the most with distribution are where those things are happening on a consistent basis.
Moran: The complexity of the sales cycle increases as providers get larger. The more complex accounts have multiple stakeholders, and the distributor knows who they are. Yes, we have access to more data than ever before. But on ride-days – especially in the more complex accounts – we want to be with a distributor rep who has a good map of the relationships within the customer’s organization.
The other thing is, there is growth within the specialist segment of the market. Many of those specialists are not part of the more complex IDNs. And distributors know specialists very well. That’s where we’re driving our team.
Repertoire: How are your salespeople responding to your call for more ride-days? What reservations do they have, if any?
Austin: We began with establishing a distribution playbook that outlined how and why it’s important to win with distribution. As the team began to understand the value and importance of distribution, they developed co-travel plans as an intuitive part of developing field partnerships. The value of co-travel for both the local relationships and education allows our distributors to hear and see how we establish value around our solutions. This experience often prepares our distribution partners to carry that message to the end customers.
Dukarm: During our national sales meeting in January, the Roche teams were hungry to gain insights from our distribution panel on how they can best provide value to their distributor peers. We have a shared commitment to invest in this critical business relationship, and we are hearing success stories across the country. Good news travels fast, and we are optimistic that this beneficial practice will continue.
Repertoire: How are your distributor partners responding to your reps’ requests for ride-days?
Austin: We went into it with an “eyes wide open” approach and knowing that we all have a very precious resource in time. It was important for us to understand and appreciate that our distribution partners also have very limited time in their days, and co-travel had to be a value-added experience. As we have created more value in the field and with our distributors, we continue to see more opportunities for co-travel. It’s a fairly simple formula: The more value we create in the field for distributors, the more open our partners are in sharing their limited time resources with us.
Dukarm: The response from our distribution partners has varied across the distributor networks we work with, in part because each organization has very specific sales objectives and product focus areas, and in some cases they may not align completely with ours. That’s normal, but the Roche Channel Account Managers that support our distribution relationships are working with each of them to identify shared goals and opportunities to collaborate. It’s safe to say that where we are both winning, it’s due to the time investment that distributor reps are making to partner with their Roche counterparts, and vice versa.