Pharmaceutical Sales Force Effectiveness

Your sales force is an expensive but highly effective channel for customer engagement. An effective pharma sales force can help you enhance your revenue, customer relationships, communication and product knowledge. It can help you get better insights into your customer base, giving you a competitive advantage and allowing your company to adapt to market changes quickly. However, in recent years, pharma sales forces have seen hard times.

Global reductions in the sales workforce and increased industry competition have forced pharma leaders to make the most of their few resources. The global pandemic also changed the performance metrics­­: sales workers had to shift to digital communication channels to meet the same targets. These disruptions have decreased the effectiveness of the pharma sales workforce. Many leaders who acknowledge these changes seek new strategies to increase their sales force effectiveness. So, we’ve compiled a list of simple techniques to help you improve your sales force effectiveness.

7 Strategies to Improve Sales Force Effectiveness

Revisit performance metrics.

Why? 

You can’t improve your revenue if your sales workforce is not focusing on the right performance metrics. Many managers forget to revisit their sales executives’ performance metrics when the company updates objectives, which creates a divide, reducing sales force effectiveness. By redefining performance metrics, your workforce's daily, weekly and monthly targets align with those of the company. Hence, your workforce can deliver sales that actually add value to the company.

How to implement?

• Redefine key performance metrics for your salesforce based on the company’s quarterly, yearly and overall objectives.
• Set basic metrics (e.g., total revenue and overall interactions with healthcare professionals (HCPs)) and product-specific or category-specific metrics to allow executives wiggle room.

Adopt data insights.

Why?

Data analytics can help your sales executives prioritise HCPs with high potential for conversion, which optimises their time and effort. Data insights can also help you personalise interactions and identify the right executive for converting an HCP. Additionally, data-driven insights can improve your sales forecasting efficiency and resource allocation, increasing your sales force's effectiveness.

How to implement?

• Integrate customer relationship management (CRM) systems and AI data analytics tools to track HCP engagement and market trends.
• Use predictive analytics to identify HCPs most receptive to specific products and provide detailed insights to executives to help them convert HCPs.

Train and upskill your executives.

Why?

Sales executives need to be more than witty to get sales; they need detailed knowledge of physiology, pharmacology, anatomy, formulations and manufacturing. A well-trained sales force can effectively communicate your company’s value propositions and build strong relationships. Furthermore, a well-trained executive projects credibility and trust, making HCPs more willing to convert.

How to implement?

• Provide regular in-house training programs on key knowledge areas related to all products.
• Enrol your executives in industry events, workshops, and learning and networking opportunities.
• Use digital platforms to provide courses executives can complete when required for a particular product.

Improve your territory management.

Why?

Each territory should have optimal coverage to ensure all HCPs in the area receive appropriate information. Too many executives operating in the same location will lead to redundant efforts, and too few executives will lead to insufficient customer engagement. By optimising territory management, you can ensure better coverage of key HCPs, increasing the overall sales force's effectiveness.

How to implement?

• Use geographic and demographic data to allocate territories among executives.
• Regularly reassess and adjust territories to ensure an executive does not feel over or under-burdened.
• Implement a dynamic management system that provides executives with detailed information regarding all key HCPs.

Use AI and automation

Why?

The reasoning is quite simple: If you automate some repetitive tasks in your executives’ workflows, they can focus on actual value-driving processes. For example, your executives don’t need to spend time on these activities by automating report generation and appointment setup. Instead, they can spend time interacting with HCPs and making sales. This will improve sales force effectiveness.

How to implement?

• Implement CRM systems with AI-powered chatbots or templates for initial HCP interactions or generic follow-ups.
• Automate appointment scheduling and reminders as well as report generation in CRM systems.

Increase collaboration between sales and marketing

Why?

Sales and marketing teams often operate as separate entities, which is not conducive to sales force effectiveness. By strengthening collaboration between your sales and marketing teams, you can ensure your company has a unified approach to messaging, targeting and engagement strategies. Furthermore, marketing teams can provide leads and increase conversion rates.

How to implement?

• Use a centralised CRM system where sales and marketing teams can collaborate and share data.
• Establish a feedback loop where the sales team provides feedback on customer preference to the marketing team, which can adjust future campaigns based on realistic insights.

Boost your underperforming staff.

Why?

Sometimes, despite using the best campaigns, the best CRM system and the best leads, you may not be getting the required conversions, and this may be because of underperforming staff. Identify underperformers and deal with them: either provide them with the skills to help them reach the target or cut them loose.

How to implement?

• Track key performance metrics to help you understand their efficiency (e.g., time to onboard a client, complete a task, etc.)
• Review the performance of all executives regularly to filter non-performers.
• Host regular meetings to find problems executives face that may result in performance decay—and deal with them!

These strategies can help you significantly improve your sales force effectiveness, leading to higher conversions and business growth. However, many pharma leaders face challenges in implementing common pharma sales strategies.

Challenges Decreasing Sales Force Effectiveness

Poor product knowledge

As we’ve already said, executives need detailed knowledge about physiology, pharmacology, anatomy, formulations and manufacturing. Without it, they will struggle to answer questions, leading to missed opportunities or spreading misinformation about the product. All of these factors will lead to weakened brand credibility.

Solutions:

• Invest in continuous training courses, workshops, and certifications to ensure executives have in-depth knowledge of all products and technologies.
• Hold in-person role-play scenarios to judge and improve executives’ performance when making sales pitches.
• Use quick-view materials that executives can scan through before or during visits to brush up their knowledge on a topic.

Regulatory restrictions

Regulatory guidelines in many regions restrict the direct marketing and promotion of drugs to HCPs, and non-compliance with these guidelines can result in loss of HCP trust or fines. Consequently, sales executives often face challenges converting HCPs and balancing persuasive selling with regulatory guidelines.

Solutions:

• Provide compliance training courses for all executives so they remain updated on guidelines.
• Provide pre-approved marketing materials to all executives to create sales pitches before visiting HCPs.
• Implement a review process where new executives are shadowed by seniors who ensure their sales pitches remain compliant.

Limited access to HCPs

Most HCPs have busy schedules, and hospitals and clinics limit the number of sales visits HCPs can have. These limit sales executives’ access to HCPs, making it harder to build relationships and get conversions.

Solutions:

• Automate scheduling so executives do not have to contact HCPs to schedule regular visits. CRM systems can track the number of visits HCPs have received and optimise the timetable.
• Adopt digital techniques like online discussions, virtual meetings and webinars to increase sales.

These challenges aren’t impossible to overcome but require executives to think outside the box.

Conclusion

A strong sales force can help your company build strong relationships with HCPs. However, due to market pressures, the pandemic and budget cuts, many companies have fewer resources than they need, which makes it all the more important to increase their sales force effectiveness. This article highlighted seven strategies that can help you steadily improve the effectiveness of your pharma sales. In addition, we’ve also discussed common challenges and solutions for problems faced in sales force management. If you implement other strategies to increase the effectiveness of your sales force, let us know!

FAQs

1. What is sales force effectiveness?

Sales force effectiveness is a strategy used by companies to improve the performance and productivity of their sales executives.

2. Can AI be integrated into sales force effectiveness?

Yes! AI-driven systems can be used for predictive analytics, appointment scheduling and smart insights.

3. Can CRM systems improve pharma sales?

Yes, they can improve pharma sales by tracking HCP interactions, analysing engagement trends, and allowing collaboration with marketing teams.