Your Sales Calls and Your Organization’s Strategic Agenda

Your Sales Calls and Your Organization’s Strategic Agenda:
Connecting the Dots
by Ann Maloley, MBA

In our ongoing interactions with physician relations reps around the country we find that many of you are acutely aware of the need for sharp sales skills and a customer service attitude to create a lasting relationship with your physician targets. You know the importance of engaging in credible dialogue, responding to issues and concerns and most importantly, asking for the business. No question that brushing up on these skills is an important part of the pre-call preparation.

But there’s another building block that is necessary to support a solid infrastructure to your physician relations program, and one that many of us tend to overlook. I’d like to center this piece on the importance of aligning the focus of your sales calls with your organization’s strategic agenda. To ground your sales plan in organizational buy-in and give it credibility as a “top-down” program you want to make sure it reflects the strategic direction of your facility. By aligning the focus and agenda of your sales calls with your organization’s strategic priorities you demonstrate that your efforts are an integral part of the organization’s mission and vision. This sends a positive signal to the physician that you are their connector to the facility’s plans for the future.

The first step in this is being able to articulate your organization’s brand in a way that is meaningful to the physicians. Be prepared to share highlights of the organization’s brand promise, both from the physician’s perspective and the perspective of their patients, in terms that they can relate to. The key in this is making sure that this promise differentiates you from other organizations. In other words, know the answer to the question, What does your organization offer to the physician that is not offered by your competitors? By doing this you help the physicians understand that you are going to deliver on what is important on them. And be clear and focused about it. The desired outcome is that the physicians will then be able to form their own expectations of what your facility should deliver. These expectations, if shared by the physician, can spark meaningful dialogue that allows you to then shape your sales messages in a way that communicates the benefit to them. The bottom line is to give them something of value.

One of the biggest problem areas for physicians not having trust and confidence in hospital leadership is being uniformed about the hospitals’ plans for the future. The study indicates that physicians want to know whether hospitals are making strategic plans for the future and be involved in the process.

Source: Press Ganey research referenced in HealthLeaders Media “Best Practices for Building Strong Relationships with Referring Physicians”

Another critical success factor in aligning the focus of your sales call with your facility’s strategy is to clearly understand the facility’s areas targeted for growth and/or revenue generators. Then, ask your internal leaders if these areas are ready to accept new business. If, from a business development standpoint, your facility is not clinically or operationally ready to deliver strong cardiac business for example, you certainly don’t want to be asking your physician targets to increase their cardiac referrals to your organization. The last thing you want to have happen is for the physician to send a new referral to your organization and have a bad experience because the service line (or entry point into that service line, for that matter) was not ready to deliver. So, before going out on your calls meet with organizational leaders that can provide you with a clear picture of the organization’s strategic initiatives. Then, build your sales messages and tools around the same ones.

By connecting the dots between your organization’s strategic focus and your conversations with physicians you have the opportunity to start the discussion at a level that physicians will appreciate, while setting the stage for more immediate sales success. Sell the services that support your organization’s competitive position and funnel your communications to those services that are ready…and enjoy the benefits that this brings to advancing your physician relationships.

Other Articles in the May 2008 Issue of The Market Tenor

The Pre-Call Plan: A Little Organization Makes a World of DifferenceGO

Taking Along a Hospital Leader to Your Physician Visit? Plan Ahead Can Ensure SuccessGO

Pre Sales Call Planning: Data Review, Readiness and Product KnowledgeGO

Marketing Communications Support of SalesGO

Learning OpportunitiesGO

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