Peak 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. It is not good enough for a pharmaceutical company to rest on its laurels when it comes to its creative ability, as it will be judged by the effectiveness of its sales and marketing team, which must be well 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.

Far too often the act of a sale is construed as a perfect result. 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. The sales executive may appear to be very efficient, but unless a meaningful relationship has been created between the buyer and the seller, the overall or net value of the transaction can be questioned. In this analysis, incentives must be prepared and deployed selectively, with the aim of achieving a “win-win” solution all around.

Productivity generally increases if an individual is incentivised, as this is within our nature. Create sensible goals to move the sales force forward. If this is handled correctly it will create a volatile and effective environment, but it can also be detrimental if handled poorly. 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. This will ensure that the sales executive is constantly engaged.

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. Indeed, if these boring tasks get completely out of control, certain personality types can rebel and this can have a serious, knock-on effect on creativity and achievements.

A sales force will only be really effective if a comprehensive training process is in place and the team member must feel that he or she is part of a dynamic organisation. While administrative burdens should be kept to a minimum as we have said, training must nevertheless be prioritised. 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 Director of L2L Consulting, an elite pharmaceutical consultancy firm which specialises in Strategy Development and Implementation Excellence for prestigious multi-national organisations.