There are many qualities a great sales representative should posses. From my experience in pharma industry, there are 5 qualities which have a great impact, but are most of the time overlooked:
Involves the manager in setting the agenda
Agenda setting process is a responsibility of the field sales manager, but a good sales representative is proactive in involving his/her manager as early as possible in the activity. He should share the reasoning behind his customer selection, why he chooses to visit some customers earlier, others late and some of them only if needed.
There are two main advantages for this approach:
- getting initial feedback. In fast paced industries, what was true yesterday is not necessarily true today. But involving the manager early in the process, the sales rep can receive valuable feedback about subtle changes in the approach of the company
- two minds are better than one. By sharing the assumptions, which customers does he plan to visit at the beginning of the cycle, which later and which on a need basis, the sales rep is testing and clarifying his approach.
Is well prepared, but fine-tunes the tactics in front of the customer
A great sales rep prepares the visit by collecting all available information, distilling it and choosing the right call strategy.
But the information he/she gets when entering the pharmacy, seeing the shelfs, the customers, having the small talk with the staff makes the difference. A good sales rep is using it for starting the conversation from a common ground, and for fine-tunning his sales speech and proposal.
Starts with the needs of the discussion partner
At least for the first priority, the conversation between the sales rep and the pharmacist should start from an open question or from a category insight. Speaking about the challenges in a category means spraking the language of the pharmacist. Speaking about how amazing your new product is, means shouting “I am a seller”.
Builds a category message for the pharmacist
A good sales representative knows how to pack his brand/product objectives in messages that resonate with the needs of the pharmacist. And this is a key principle in category management. A pharmacist is willing to sell more of your product if:
- it brings a specific advantage versus selling a competitor product
- it brings incremental sales
Otherwise, replacing a competitor product with your is a zero-sum game for the pharmacist.
Transforms the pharmacist in a brand ambassador
Just selling-in (stocking the pharmacist with the products) is not enough. The pharmacist needs support to sell-out the products. This includes help on visibility, but – most important – on how to recommend the products. What is key- and rarely achieved – is to help the pharmacist to recommend your products in a way that makes him/her feel good and fullfilled. The role of the pharmacist is to recommend and to help and nothing makes him/her feel better that knowing they made the right recommendation.
Cosmin Tanase 