EffectiveSales Management
By Christine M. Rhodes, MS
As physician relations/sales programs mature and experience success, it is not uncommon for these programs to employ multiple sales staff. As the teams grow, their supervision is sometimes transitioned from reporting directly to a senior level executive, to reporting to a sales manager or program director who reports to the senior leader.
Effective physician relations/sales team management goes far beyond the old watchdog work of making sure people were on time, met sales call quotas and turned in their required paperwork. Effective physician relations/sales program managers are expected to be strategists, trainers, coaches and cheerleaders and at times, need mentoring to develop their strengths in these areas.
|
•
|
Help their team balance activity measures with outcome measures
|
|
•
|
Help their team identify the most valuable targets to achieve organizational goals
|
|
•
|
Support their team members development of organizational and clinical knowledge their sales techniques
|
|
•
|
Develop teams that expect and accept a culture of coaching and feedback
|
|
•
|
Reward and recognize team members
|
Balancing Activity With Outcomes
In the early stages of a physician relations program, the measures employed to determine success are activity-based. How many office visits did the representative make? How many of these visits included contact with the physician, the office staff? More mature programs begin to track outcomes in the form of business gained as a result of the activity. What is the volume of surgical cases this quarter from physicians seen the quarter before and how does that compare to this quarter last year? It is the manager’s responsibility to help the team strike a balance between activity and outcome with the understanding that there is co-dependence between the two.
Identifying Priority Targets
Effective sales managers are the link from the strategic vision of the hospital leadership to the sales team in the field. They are responsible for communicating strategic priorities and converting them to the sales team’s overall plan. The next step of identifying target physicians within the sales plan should be developed collaboratively between the manager and the sales staff.
Development of Organizational and Clinical Knowledge
Sales managers know that time in the field is key to a representative’s success. However, product knowledge is critical to the representative’s credibility with their audiences. The balance between being in the field and gaining knowledge of the organization and the clinical services is a delicate one. The sales manager must help identify and prioritize learning opportunities for the staff.
When orienting new employees, good sales managers spend time in the field – training, observing and coaching. The expectation of many sales representatives is that once they are checked off as competent, their manager will stop observing and coaching. On the manager’s side they often feel their work is done as well.
A few benefits for a culture of coaching and feedback are: first, the sales staff will welcome and expect regular observation and feedback through ride-alongs by their sales manager; second, the sales manager will allocate the time and attention to ongoing work in the field; and finally, the team will also come to expect individual feedback in a manner that helps them improve their activity and outcomes.
Reward and Recognize
Strong sales management includes formal and informal rewards and recognition of the staff. Formal incentive payment programs for physician relations/sales staff are becoming more common and are based on a weighted combination of activity and outcomes. Informal recognition programs can piggyback on a hospital-wide program or can be an ad-hoc activity within the physician relations/sales department. Be spontaneous and have fun with the informal programs – the work the representatives do every day is difficult and some humor and levity is needed!
|
2003 research by the Gallup Organization showed that salespeople with the right managers can improve their performance up to 20%.
Discover Your |
