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September
25 , 2004
The September 21st
issue of the Eyeforpharma Briefing featured
an RMCI article on institutionalizing sales force effectiveness
efforts. In a recent RMCI survey, more than 90% of senior
managers indicated that less than half of their sales forces'
calls were effective. Yet many remain uncertain as to
how best to implement effective solutions. Click
here to read about a practical
framework for increasing sales by improving sales force effectiveness.
August 15,
2004
The July/August issue
of European Pharmaceutical Executive features
an RMCI article on improving sales force effectiveness.
For sales managers facing a mandate to more with less, this
article offers an overview of major barriers to sales effectiveness
and a robust process for making sustainable improvements in
sales productivity.
Click here to read the article in pdf
format.
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June 11,
2004
On June 11th RMCI
presented "Diagnosing and Improving Sales Effectiveness
for Sustained Results" to the Sales Effectiveness Conference
USA in Philadelphia. The conference brought together
senior level pharmaceutical and biotech sales executives with
a focus on how to implement the latest targeting, sizing,
and performance measurement strategies to increase sales results.
You may request a copy of the presentation outlined below
by clicking here:
 Critical
success factors for improving sales effectiveness
• High-level
sponsorship
• Cross-functional
cooperation to identify best practices and key improvement
opportunities
• Detailed
action planning to leverage organizational strengths and
address weaknesses
• Willingness
and ability to break through cultural inertia to implement
effective change
Common
sales effectiveness gaps
• Poor
call execution including pre-call planning and reporting
• Limited
buy-in to or poor execution of the profiling and targeting
processes
• Limited
or inadequate district manager coaching
• Limited
focus on frequency attainment
• Organization
structure or metrics that inhibit sales effectiveness
Practical
tools and techniques to drive positive change
May 10,
2004
Welcome to the May
2004 quarterly High Impact Pharma Sales newsletter.
In this edition, we continue our focus on improving sales
force productivity with two new articles on sales effectiveness
that we hope will help you improve top-line performance.
We'll also let you know about a new product we've introduced
to help life sciences sales forces build internal sales force
sizing and strategic planning capability.
Click on the links
below to read the articles in this edition of HIPS.
Sales
Effectiveness in Account Settings -- Many
principles of sales effectiveness apply to all sales forces.
But sales representatives who work in account-based settings
like hospitals often lack the precise customer data that their
physician-office-based counterparts enjoy. This article
describes techniques for improving sales effectiveness when
the sales force must develop as well as consume most important
customer data.
Case
Study: Increasing Sales by Improving Sales Effectiveness
-- During our corporate history we've helped sales forces
around the world improve their productivity. We know
from experience that improving sales effectiveness is not
easy. But it's not impossible. We're sharing one
client's success story to help motivate you to stay focused
on sales effectiveness. Real sales growth will be the
result.
Building
Internal Sales Planning Capability -- This article
describes how life sciences managers can build internal sales
force strategy and sizing capability with RMCI's new desktop
sales force sizing tool for non-US markets.
In April, RMCI presented
innovative research on pharmaceutical co-commercialization
strategies to the Pharmaceutical Marketing Science Association
annual conference in San Francisco. The study examines
whether co-marketing or co-promotion strategies yield greater
sales over time. RMCI analyzed six years of sales data
across 24 countries for four products selected from among
hundreds for their suitability for the study. The analysis
concluded that in most cases, co-marketing strategies generated
higher sales than co-promotion strategies. If you would
like more information about the study, please click here.
On March 1st RMCI
presented "Diagnosing and Improving the Right Sales Force
Effectiveness Levers for Sustained Results" to the Eyeforpharma
Sales Effectiveness Conference in Barcelona. The presentation
provided RMCI's experience and views on:
Current
trends in sales force effectiveness
Tools
for diagnosing and tracking sales effectiveness
A
process for implementing sales effectiveness improvement
Click
here to request a copy of the presentation.
January
19, 2004
Happy New Year,
and welcome to the January 2004 quarterly edition of High
Impact Pharma Sales. To kick off the New Year, we are
introducing a new feature -- the Expert's Corner -- which
will appear periodically in this newsletter. We'll invite
industry experts to share their perspectives on trends and
innovations in life sciences sales. To inaugurate this
feature, we've invited Jean-Yves Kainic, Director of Client
Solutions for the TerrAlign Group,
to contribute an article on Innovations in Territory Alignment.
Improving
Customer Targeting -- This article concludes our series
on targeting by describing a process to improve targeting
in any market -- whether data rich or data poor -- and provides
examples of innovative approaches to customer profiling in
markets where third-party customer data is not available.
The
Expert's Corner: Innovations in Territory Alignment,
by Jean-Yves Kainic, Director of Client Solutions, the TerrAlign
Group -- Maintaining balanced
sales territories is critical to maximizing sales productivity.
Mr. Kainic describes new techniques to significantly
increase flexibility and reduce the administrative burden
of maintaining territories. He also discusses recent innovations
to help improve territory design.
Challenges
to Implementing Best Practices in Sales Effectiveness
-- This article concludes our series on best practices with
a discussion of common challenges to implementing best practices
and a process to sustain best practice for long-term success.
December
8 , 2003
On November 18th,
RMCI presented Improving Sales Effectiveness, A Process to
Align the Sales, Training and Recruiting Functions at the
Life Sciences Sales Forum in Philadelphia. The presentation
provided an assessment of
The
current state of sales effectiveness
Key performance gaps that impact sales effectiveness
A
process and tools to improve sales productivity
Click
here to request a copy of the full presentation.
October
21, 2003
The October issue
of Pharmaceutical Representative includes
an RMCI article describing how to prepare the sales force
-- typically the least experienced employees -- to effectively
handle key customers. Over the last 10 years the sales
representative's job has become more difficult and complex
at the same time that average rep experience has declined.
This article explains how to coordinate the hiring, training,
sales, and marketing functions to ensure that new reps produce
good results quickly without alienating key customers.
Click
here to read how to
Coordinate hiring practices and training with key sales force
needs
Implement a sales development continuum to get maximum results
from new reps
Align marketing
strategies with sales force capabilities
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September 11, 2003
The September issue of Pharmaceutical Representative
features an RMCI
article on the best practices of district sales managers
(DSMs). As the pharmaceutical marketplace has grown more complex,
and the number of reps competing for doctors' attention exploded,
the DSM has become the critical driver of sales success. Read
about
Why the DSM is the key to unlocking productivity gains
How to clearly define the DSM role
Skills that distinguish exceptional DSMs from average ones
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September 9, 2003
Welcome to the second quarterly issue of the High Impact
Pharmaceutical Sales Newsletter (HIPS). Thank you for your
feedback on our last issue. We continue to look for ideas
to make this newsletter even more valuable, so your continued
feedback
is welcome.
This issue introduces a new feature - RMCI's Instant Survey.
In each newsletter, we will include a link to a quick survey
(ten questions or less) on a current industry issue. The initial
Instant Survey is on sales force metrics and will take less
than 5 minutes to complete. When you complete the survey,
you will be able to review a summary of responses-to-date,
and we will send you a survey summary once the survey is complete.
We hope you participate.
Identifying and Improving upon Best Practice -- The best
sales forces develop and continuously improve the best practices
for selling their products. This effort requires teamwork
by the sales force, marketing and sales training. This article
identifies five key steps to executing a "best practices"
approach to continuous improvement.
Sales Force
Automation: Keeping the Focus on Sales -- Today, good
SFA systems can do just about anything a manager wants them
to do. That's a problem. Firms are implementing systems that
do many things poorly rather than doing a great job on what
really matters. Sales reps and managers end up with too much
data at their disposal when what they really need is to manage
their information more effectively. Focused SFA system implementation
can help firms do exactly that.
Measuring
Execution of the Targeting Strategy -- Our April newsletter
highlighted targeting strategies and tactics. This month,
we describe a simple metric that measures how effectively
the sales force executes the customer targeting strategy.
In our next issue, we will complete this three-part customer
targeting series by describing a process for using the targeting
effectiveness metric to improve customer targeting and increase
sales.
HIPS Instant Survey -- There is one constant in consulting
- clients always want to know what others are doing. With
the introduction of "Instant Survey" we will provide
you with timely insights on how the pharmaceutical industry
is addressing key sales force topics.
Measuring sales force effectiveness is a hot topic and this
is our first survey subject. Click on the link above to participate
in a short survey (nine questions) on sales force metrics.
Your confidentiality is protected and you will receive a report
that summarizes what the industry is doing.
August 3, 2003
RMCI is sponsoring the 2nd annual Life Science Sales Forum
in Philadelphia November 17-18. Top pharmaceutical industry
speakers will present new approaches to recruiting, training,
and retaining high quality personnel. For more information,
click
here to view the conference web site or contact
us.
April 30, 2003
This month we complete the transition from a monthly to a
quarterly newsletter format. Starting with this issue, each
newsletter will contain three to five articles on sales force
strategy and effectiveness topics. The new format allows each
newsletter to cover both general interest topics as well as
"special interest" topics written for specific audiences
or geographies. We welcome your comments
on the new format.
Measuring
Sales Force Effectiveness -- This month we conclude our
four-part series on Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE) with an
article on measuring effectiveness and monitoring performance.
Prior articles in the series described a process to diagnose
and identify improvement opportunities, prioritize opportunities
and develop solutions, and implement change. Measuring and
monitoring performance is a critical component of this process
that helps sustain effectiveness gains.
A Coach's
Guide to Field Days -- Tiger Woods may be the greatest
golfer of all time, but even Tiger attributes much of his
success to having a great coach. Butch Harmon has coached
Tiger for more than a decade and has helped him to consistently
improve his performance. In many sales organizations, District
Sales Managers (DSMs) spend two to four days a week in the
field "coaching" their sales teams. This article
describes how sales managers who implement a coaching process
similar to Butch and Tiger's can significantly improve the
performance of their reps.
Targeting with Imperfect Information -- Anyone familiar
with the game of darts knows how difficult it is to hit the
bull's-eye -- even from a short distance. Now imagine trying
to hit the bull's-eye while blindfolded. In the US, pharmaceutical
sales reps and managers have extensive customer information
on which to base customer targeting decisions. In many overseas
markets, however, regulatory and market restrictions limit
the information available to firms to assist the customer
selection process. This article outlines a process for developing
the information you need to effectively target customers when
"perfect information" just isn't available.
February 28, 2003
Our February High Impact Pharmaceutical Selling (HIPS) newsletter
continues the RMCI series on improving sales force effectiveness.
This month's issue focuses on Realizing Change: The Real Work
Begins. Learn how top firms use the TRACK principles to effectively
implement sales effectiveness improvements.
February 28, 2003
Click
here to request a copy of RMCI's recent primer on customer
profiling and targeting strategies for pharmaceutical markets
where universal physician level prescribing data is not available.
February 4, 2003
Click
here to request a copy of RMCI's recent primer on key
trends and issues in Asian pharmaceutical marketplaces. Based
on 2002 work in 9 markets including Japan, China, Korea, Hong
Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand,
this short paper identifies key challenges for 2003:
Effective customer targeting
Leveraging daily sales data
First line manager capabilities
Achieving customer frequency
January 31, 2003
Read RMCI’s latest High Impact Pharmaceutical Sales
(HIPS) newsletter
“From Diagnosis to Solutions” on a process to
develop solutions to sales effectiveness challenges that increases
the chance of successful implementation. Future newsletters
will cover:
Implementing Sales Force Effectiveness Change
Key Metrics and Monitoring Sales Force Effectiveness
Sales Force Strategy -- Lessons from Europe and Asia
December 11, 2002
Read RMCI’s latest High Impact Pharmaceutical Sales
(HIPS) newsletter
“What's Your View of the Elephant” on how a unique
diagnostic process can help jump start sales by identifying
opportunities to quickly improve sales force effectiveness.
December 4, 2002
On December 3, 2002 senior managers from RMCI presented “Sales
Force Strategy – Key Lessons and Practical Insights”
at the Belgian Pharmaceutical Sales Forum. Click
here for the table of contents and a quick diagnostic
quiz. Click
here to request the full presentation.
November 23, 2002
Read RMCI’s latest High Impact Pharmaceutical Sales
(HIPS) newsletter
“Fundamentals Win” on how getting back to basics
can improve sales force effectiveness.
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