Professional Selling Skills Rx

When pharmaceutical salespeople become consultative problem-solvers, they will set new sales records – then break them.

Physicians and their staff aren’t what they used to be. They’re more knowledgeable, more sophisticated, more pressured and more demanding. They don’t have time to waste. They want to make informed buying decisions.

As a result, organizations that want to increase the performance of their pharmaceutical salespeople are adopting a more consultative sales approach.

Prescription for sales success

Professional Selling Skills Rx offers a proven, powerful model for face-to-face selling that equips your salespeople with the skills to develop lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with physicians and their staff. Skills that help them differentiate themselves – and your products and services – in a crowded marketplace.

Building on the selling skills and strategies that have benefited more than three million sales professionals around the world, this program enables your organization to achieve – and sustain – consistently high sales performance.

Benefits of Using Professional Selling Skills

Your salespeople will:
• learn the essential facts of the pharmaceutical industry, which is particularly helpful to college recruits or new hires with no experience selling to physicians
• gain the skills to develop solid business relationships while improving sales performance
• learn to sell more competitively by establishing a positive, distinctive, highly ethical profile – for themselves and for your organization
• increase their long-term effectiveness by becoming knowledgeable consultants who aid customers in making sound buying decisions
• improve their ability to build rapport and increase trust with new customers
• as experienced salespeople, plan what to probe for on sales calls to maximize their own and their customer’s time – maximize their chance of success on the call

Your customers will enjoy:
• lasting relationships with salespeople who understand the their business realities
• products that address their specific practice and patient needs
• buying decisions based on fact, not on high-pressure sales tactics

Your organization will experience:
• increased success in winning new business and building physician loyalty
• decreased costs by helping salespeople better judge account potential and use their time more efficiently
• a common sales team language, resulting in improved communication and teamwork
• reduced turnover by providing salespeople with direction, support and development

Who Should Attend
New or experienced pharmaceutical sales professionals and their marketing and support staffs

Program Highlights & Outcomes (3 day course)

Four Core Skills (1 day)

Prework
• acquire an overview of the pharmaceutical industry, including terminology, types of medical specialties, the realities of selling in this industry, selling to large and small accounts and the basics of need satisfaction selling
• gain an understanding of the pharmaceutical sales environment, which differs markedly from typical face-to-face selling

Opening
• learn how to open calls in a positive and productive way that engages the customer in the conversation
• examine how – and why it’s important – to reach agreement with the doctor or staff member on what will be covered or accomplished during the call
• explore how opening a call with an existing customer differs from opening a call with a new customer
• discuss how to position the opening so the doctor sees the relevance of the conversation and recognizes that the salesperson is treating him or her as an individual

Probing
• learn when and how to use probes to gather information and build a clear, complete, mutual understanding of a customer’s needs
• explore how – and why it’s important – to uncover the circumstances driving the customer’s need
• examine two types of questioning techniques: open and closed probes
• learn to guide the direction of a sales call by striking an appropriate balance between open and closed probes
• study how to use probes to elicit specific information, confirm the customer’s need and check understanding of the need
• learn to position probes to facilitate an open exchange of information

Supporting
• examine how to provide information that helps the customer make an informed buying decision
• explore the best time – and the most powerful and persuasive way – to talk about the product or service and the organization
• learn to demonstrate how each product or service feature will benefit the customer
• learn the importance of acknowledging each need before introducing product or service benefits
• explore the consequences of prematurely supporting a customer’s needs

Closing
• learn to recognize when a customer is prepared to move ahead in the sales cycle
• practice a three-step process for securing customer commitment to next steps in the sales cycle
• explore the difference between closing the sale and continuing the sales process
• learn how to handle a customer who stalls in response to a close
• learn how to propose a backup call objective in response to a customer’s refusal to accept the proposed next steps
• learn the best way to terminate a relationship that’s not mutually beneficial

Customer Indifference and Concerns (1 day)

Overcoming Customer Indifference
• explore what’s behind a customer’s indifference
• learn how to respond to a customer who’s disinterested in – or indifferent to – the product or service
• examine the importance of acknowledging the customer’s point of view
• learn how to uncover opportunities to improve the customer’s circumstances with the product or service and present the consequences of leaving the situation unchanged

Handling Customer Concerns
• learn to recognize and differentiate the three types of customer concerns: skepticism, misunderstandings and drawbacks
• explore the importance of probing to understand a customer’s concern before responding
• learn when in the sales cycle a customer is most likely to express a concern
• learn to overcome a customer’s skepticism by offering relevant proof
• discover how to clear misunderstandings by confirming the need behind the concern and then supporting the need with features and benefits of their product or service and the organization
• counter drawbacks to the product or service by helping the customer step back and look at the bigger picture and consider previously accepted benefits
• practice handling indifference and concerns customers voice about real products and services, so they are prepared to handle the same situations effectively on the job

Listening and Rapport Building (1/2 day)

Listening for Rapport
• recognize and pick up on cues when initiating and conducting customer conversations
• use proven rapport-building techniques and avoid rapport breakers

Levels of Listening
• identify the characteristics of listening at full attention, listening with partial attention and not listening, use skills to maintain full attention

Listening for Understanding
• use clarifying and confirming skills to listen for understanding and comprehension, and demonstrate attention to the customer

Advanced Probing Strategies (1/2 day)

Probing Strategies
• learn the concept of realized and unrealized needs
• learn and practice an effective probing sequence designed to create awareness of unrealized needs
• create real probing strategies that uncover needs

Call Planning
• plan where to probe by analyzing the customer and designing probes that “lead to the need”

Supporting
• practice supporting skills to use the information uncovered by probing to create vivid, compelling supporting statements
 
Practice
• role play a customer call that puts the new skills into a smooth, conversational sales interaction
• create an action plan and series of probes for a real customer to prepare to “dig where there’s pay dirt” on the next sales call with that customer