Pharmaceuticals

Though experienced pharmaceutical reps have no trouble handling the mechanics of presenting a new product, they do have challenges: 1) the massive amount of information they must master to know their products and 2) often-tight limits on presentation times to busy doctors.

The solutions are long, hard work before approaching their customers and resourcefulness and flexibility in fitting into doctors’ schedules.

A manager, a rep and a marketing expert expand on these points:

Sal Scibilia is a director of sales in charge of eight regional managers, one trainer and about 70 sales reps, for Watson Pharmaceuticals of Morristown, NJ. Scibilia manages the sale of women’s-health pharmaceuticals in the western United States.

“New drugs usually come out in waves over two to three years. Your product has to be first or second in the market or you will have a tough time. The first one out gets the bulk of the business. Eventually, a generic version will cut prices, and then you will have simply a commodity-priced drug.

Next year we are coming out with a new drug for urinary and bladder disorders. We have already launched the training, as we do for every new drug. We start out with the anatomy and physiology of the disease state. Then we talk about different ways to treat it, through pharmaceuticals, surgery and other ways. Then we talk about the new product.

This can take three to four months. Then we spend a great deal of time doing practice selling. We bring in physicians and practice-sell right to doctors. We do lots of video taping, so the reps can see when they say, ‘uh, uh’ and work on the mechanics of their presentation. For a new drug, the presentation can be formal. You see the doctor and his associates, maybe two or three nurses. You stand up with a flip chart. We are also using more CD-ROMs and projectors. So now the reps have to be PC-knowledgeable.

You must always remember that you are presenting to the most educated people in the world: doctors. They are not necessarily the most intelligent people, but they are the most educated. You must speak their language and understand how they think and train. And that takes time. Most reps are former teachers or communications or business majors.”

Beth Ann Keeler is one of Scibilia’s top sales reps. She sells for Watson out of Chesterfield, MO.

We start by researching the disease state. I go back to my physiology books and study that body part. Then, we research other products in the market and uncover the need for this product. We always have some type of training meeting, and we are given books that we have to study. We are tested at the meetings. Then we are trained by physicians. All this typically takes three to six months.

Then we start with a guided design of the presentation, laying out all the things that have to happen to uncover the need for the new product. We are graded on how well we do the presentation. We then role play and practice presentation skills in front of our team. We record the perfect presentation. We make sure we hit every point: If there is a contraindication, have we included that?

In most doctors’ offices, the doctors are there at certain times. As long as no other rep is there, they will usually let us in. Or we wait for the physician to step out of his patient room. If it is not a good time, we make an appointment. Normally, we set a lot of breakfast and lunch meetings. They will usually give us additional time for a new product.

Of course, that doesn’t always happen. Then you just walk in and go through the three most important things about the product. You later record what you talked about so that next time you can remind them of those points, then bring up the next issues. It is a running dialogue: you must break up the perfect presentation into segments. So we practice the full-blown presentation and also a 30-second version.

We take product binders along on every call to guide the presentation. The binder allows me to know what points I have hit. If the physician asks a question that makes me jump ahead, I simply put my hand in the place where I left off, so I can go back and cover all the issues. It is extremely important to discuss all the issues, everything they will have to know before they prescribe the drug. I also leave behind materials, package inserts, marketing materials and, sometimes, samples.

It usually takes a number of visits to change a doctor’s prescribing habits. If the product is a new class of therapy, it can take up to six or eight visits to increase their comfort level so that they will actively prescribe it. It is also important to tell all the people in the office what you tell the doctor. They may know of a certain patient who might benefit, or answer a question from the doctor if he asks them. We sell the whole office.

The biggest challenge is to know all the studies and all the background research. It’s like being in college forever. You must also know what kinds of drugs each doctor prescribes. Some are gung ho about adopting new products. Others will not use a new product until it is standard practice in the industry.

We have a medical-advisory group that helps answer any questions I cannot answer. Then I have a reason to go back and give the doctor the answer. I try to bring a new piece of information every time I go in to a doctor’s office.

This is the hardest job I have ever had that I’ve really loved.”

Kurt Kessler, Ph.D., is a principal with ZS Associates. He has been developing marketing strategies for pharmaceutical companies for 10 years.

“There is intense activity for 18 to 20 months prior to the launch of a new pharmaceutical. The positioning strategy balances three factors: the need for the product; the competition; and how to differentiate the product in terms of efficacy, safety, side effects and dosing.

Unlike with other packaged consumer goods, you can’t just say a new drug is ‘new and better.’ This is a heavily regulated industry. Your promotional messages are subject to regulatory approval. You must have hard data to back up statements. The FDA has a whole division, the DDMAC, that reviews what we say about the products.

As a rule of thumb, about 80 percent of the promotional money will be spent on the rep channel. There are also promotional events and materials. Events include Continued Medical Education (CME), which are structured events put on by companies or institutions for the purpose of helping doctors maintain their credentials. And there are informal dinner meetings, where local doctors are paid to present their views on the new product. And there are symposiums.

Whether calling on doctors, doing CME or preparing product brochures, you must stay consistent with the positioning strategy. All events must stay on message. If physicians go to your Website or interact over the Web or phone, they must get the same core message from each source.

We hope that electronic channels will continue to grow. But people have been predicting the demise of the pharma rep for 20 years. They have been playing Taps over the reps’ graves. Yet the number of reps has doubled in the last five years.

A common problem is that the positioning strategy breaks down in implementation. The detail aids are developed by an advertising agency, so the core message gets diluted. A special firm builds the Website. By the time the creative people have fulfilled their impulses, the positioning strategy is hard to find. If another company does your CME, that is yet another point at which the core benefits might become diluted.

ZS monitors reps in the field to uncover techniques that help improve performance and productivity. We call these interactions ‘rep rides.’ Top-performing reps always figure out a way to talk to doctors better than anything in their supporting materials could. We concentrate on helping the middle 60 percent of sales reps to be more effective.

Reps are always asked to report back to headquarters on the results of their calls. Sometimes the systems they report with are medieval. They spend significant time filling out bits of paper and never see anything useful in return. It saves time and increases compliance if their companies install modern sales force automation tools.

Sometimes, target lists of customers appear to the reps to be poor lists. They say, “I know this doctor; he doesn’t prescribe much.” What they do not know is that management is swimming in accurate data. That doctor may tell the reps he doesn’t write many prescriptions, but we have data down to the pharmacy level for 80 percent of prescriptions. I don’t think a lot of reps understand the quality of the data used to drive their call plans. If managers see resistance to their call plans, it might be a good idea to show their reps estimates of how much they could make in commissions if they stick to a good call plan.”

How They Launch and Present in Other Markets

The Automotive After-Market

Terry Thayse manages 14 reps for Klein Dickert Auto Glass in Green Bay, WI.

Thayse’s major challenge is that his basic product, glass for automobiles, does not change much. The innovations are all in the materials and methods used to install the glass, which can save customers time and money.

His preferred solution, by far, is to conduct a full demonstration at the customer’s site, so customers can compare improved installation methods to traditional installations using older, slower methods and can vividly see the speed and ease of the new methods.

When on-site demonstrations are not possible, Thayse relies on gradual education of his customers, frequent repetition of the new-product message, and then follow-up to get the orders.

Thayse explains:

“We sell automotive glass, so we aren’t blessed with a ton of new products. When we do have an opportunity to sell something new, we relish it. Usually, what’s new is not the glass itself, but the products we use to install it.

A see-touch-and-feel show can be very powerful. We introduce a new product that enables windshield glass to set up within an hour. The other products require five or six hours. We demonstrate the difference with a presentation of the product itself. The customers can see within 30 minutes that the glass is half set up, while the other products have not even begun to set. Seeing and observing is worth more than a thousand words.

Sometimes you have to use projectors or slide shows, which are second best. And you always must repeat the message. Clients will absorb only about 25 percent of the presentation the first time. Then they will get another 40 percent the second time. So you may have to follow up as many as three or four times.

Most of the time, we make 10 to 12 calls a day to discuss or present our products, and then they will call us later to place the order. We train our sales force to present the product by pointing out the advantages of using it. We want them to know our competitors’ products and our own existing products, including their limitations. We discuss these limitations with our customers to create the need for the new product. Then we present the solution and do cost-and-value analyses to convince customers of the product’s worth.

We train our reps in all these techniques. We want them to be as confident as possible about their knowledge. If they don’t make their presentation with confidence, they won’t sound like they believe it, and they cannot sell.

We start training as soon as we have decided to go with a new product. The longer you train, the more interest the sales staff will build up in the new product. They will ask more questions. That helps you close any loopholes in the presentation that you did not have answers for. We do some role playing on what is unique about the product.”

Manufacturing

Scott Hurlbut is marketing manager of Gems Sensors in Plainville, CT.

Hurlbut faces several challenges. His new products must be integrated into the designs of his manufacturing customers’ own products, which are often under development for more than a year. He needs one major customer to order and test each new product before the product can be finalized for the broader market. When he goes to market with a new product, he sells through a far-flung force of field reps as well as on the Internet, according to customer preferences. His field reps must know the new products thoroughly, but it is usually too expensive to train them centrally.

Hurlbut and his company have worked out several solutions. At Gems Sensors, “listening to your customers” is not just an interview technique, but a highly structured and lengthy survey approach that parallels the development of the product. It is critical in defining the product, identifying the best prospects and finding a candidate customer to test the product.

To sell new products online, Gems makes sure its Website contains all the relevant information presented with just the right emphasis. Customers must be guided to this information by easy, ‘intuitive’ steps.

To improve new-product training for its field reps, the company is moving to Web-cast tools, which include both graphical presentations and live teleconferencing with headquarters marketing and technical staff.

Hurlbut explains:

“We manufacture a line of industrial fluid sensors and sell primarily to manufacturers. For a new product, we have a program called VOC, or ‘voices of customers.’ If we suspect there is a new need or a hole in our product line, we formulate VOC questionnaires of a half dozen to 60 questions.

We just need to question three to 10 prospects, depending on whether the product targets one vertical market like semiconductors or a broader market. We ask what product they use now. What price points do they need? What features do we need to differentiate our new product? What are they unhappy about? How should we improve our product? The VOC process helps to spec the product for our engineers.

What also comes out of the VOC process is a list of prospects or targets. And we get people for a beta-test site, and we generate interest. But we have to do what we say we will do. You lose credibility if you go to someone, ask questions, target a launch a year from now, then come back in a year and just ask more questions.

About three-quarters of the way through product development, we start beta testing. We want early buy-in from a manufacturer with buying power. Manufacturers typically have a buying cycle of six to 18 months.

Next comes the launch. A team of marketing communication managers puts together a checklist. Do we have a list of target prospects? What is our message? How about samples and materials? What is our PR campaign, what magazines will we advertise in? Is our Website ready?

We let our customers dictate our sales channels.

We use the Web to showcase new products, driving visitors from our homepage with a banner or overt signal to a new product page to get more information. In November 2001, we launched a new Website. In just the first four months, we have doubled our online sales over the previous two years. Our new site offers more products, and it is much more intuitive and easy to navigate.

We have about 20 reps in our field direct-sales force. We send them launch packages, including leads and prospects. This list comes from people we talked to for the VOC, or similar companies. The launch package also has a small one-inch binder, a brochure, pricing sheet, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), plus any PR pieces or advertising we have.

Sometimes that is all we do for training, at least for smaller products. We don’t get together as much as we would like. Lately, we have invested in Web-casting software. We do a Web-cast where reps call in on a conference line and we hook them up. We use a kind of glorified PowerPoint that I can control over the Web.”

Insurance

Bill Klein, a broker who sells medical malpractice insurance, is based in Charlotte, NC.

Klein’s insurance product is as essential as oxygen to practicing physicians. But he faces two major challenges. His new products are usually changes in terms, often-unfavorable changes in premiums or other conditions dictated by the liability market. And he competes with major insurers’ direct reps, who may take advantage of doctors’ frustration with higher premiums to capture his customers.

Klein must maintain his customers’ trust by letting them know that the market, not his products, is driving rates up. His solution is to stay constantly in touch with his customers, letting them know ahead of time about trends in premiums and coverage well before they hear about the bad news from other sources.

Klein says:

“I represent insurance companies who offer malpractice coverage to physicians. We sell the features – how a policy responds to a medical malpractice claim. I do not introduce new products, but rather tweak the old products. These are coverage enhancements or sometimes restrictions, and we have to tell physicians how our product differs from one year to the next

There is no mechanical way of doing this. We have to make sure physicians are aware of coming changes. For example, there is a rumor that insurers will no longer be required to get consent from a doctor to settle a claim. That is a restriction, not an enhancement. And malpractice prices continue to go up. Many doctors have trouble just finding coverage, so they have to accept price increases if they want to maintain hospital privileges.

My real challenge is the competition from other brokers and from insurance companies that have direct-sales forces. Often I must tell my clients, not good news, but bad news that is coming up because of the market. I don’t want them to learn about the bad news from reading the New York Times. I don’t want them to be surprised by a big increase in premiums in midyear. Competitors could blame me for low-balling the initial policy before the price goes up on the renewal. I must make sure my customers know it is the market that is sending prices up. I must maintain my reputation for knowing about the market and develop their trust.”