Brilliant Sales Force Effectiveness Requires The Correct Approach

Proper incentivisation is critical to the effectiveness of an organisation's sales force. However, the methods of incentivisation are often misinterpreted, poorly devised or glossed over, ultimately leading to low levels of efficiency and morale, poorly motivated individuals and lacklustre results. The pharmaceutical company may be a leader in its field, be very creative and with cutting-edge solutions, but the organisation will only be truly effective if its sales and marketing team is well prepared and trained. Such a team must be comprehensive, well balanced, able to employ different strategies and techniques and perform to a high-level of efficiency within a tough commercial field. Most pharmaceutical consultants have a wide range of experience themselves and know full well how to motivate, manage and process a sales team.

The achievement of the sale is not the end of the story. While winning a sale is undoubtedly important, as after all without sales nothing is achieved, there must be tangible and measurable value attached to the sale, from every point of view. However efficient the executive, without the creation of a good relationship between both parties, the long-term baseline value of the transaction is questionable. As such, it is important that the company applies incentives very carefully and selectively, so that a “win-win” situation is always achieved.

Productivity generally increases if an individual is incentivised, as this is within our nature. Create sensible goals to move the sales force forward. Correct incentivisation will enhance the effectiveness of the sales force, but the opposite is also true. The goals set should represent a journey rather than the destination and multi-tiered targets should encourage, but always lead to a “carrot” which is just out of reach. In this way, the sales executive will be always focused.

Feedback from pharmaceutical consulting firms will tell us that sales executives are often engaged with mundane and administrative work and spend only a small amount of their time directly communicating with productive targets. This is why time management should be considered as a top priority and company executives should never put onerous administrative and accounting burdens in front of their productive sales team. Creativity and enthusiasm can be stifled within certain outgoing personality types, through the imposition of onerous or even boring demands.

If a comprehensive training program is practised by the organisation, each team member will get the feeling that he or she is dynamically engaged with the overall goal. Do not confuse administration with training – training is a priority, while administrative burdens should be minimised. This should include product awareness as well as methodology and techniques, and the latest procedures can be implemented through pharma consulting firms. Such companies have been proven to raise morale, cut out negative emotions, inject just the right amount of enthusiasm and draw on their extensive industry background.

Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of L2L Consulting, specialising in enabling pharmaceutical companies to achieve new heights of productivity and performance, throughout all levels of management and revenue generating activities.