SUCCESS STORIES

Continuous Learning Opportunities Provide Edge for Pharmaceutical Sales Professionals

Once a National or Regional Account Manager (AM) has mastered the skills to successfully manage their accounts strategically, the learning shouldn't stop here. They need advanced learning opportunities that will help them maintain a market leadership position.

Objective: A pharmaceutical company identified the core competencies for AMs and provided a curriculum for training during their first year in the position. Beyond this one-year mark, continuous learning opportunities were needed to support the organization's business model and strategy, encourage best practices, and provide up-to-date marketplace information that would prepare AMs to continuously bring value to their accounts.

Solution: Partnering with the managed markets trainers, three eLearning courses were developed to provide continuous learning. Early in the development process, the company recognized that the selected topics – each focusing on a current marketplace trend – would be valuable information for the entire sales force. The resulting courses are now used to provide advanced marketplace training for AMs, sales managers, and sales representatives.

Marketplace trends can be a moving target, providing a challenge to training departments to keep the sales force updated with the most current information. The payoff in providing training on current trends is a cutting-edge sales team that is able to bring increased value to their relationships with providers and accounts.

SUCCESS STORIES

Expanding Knowledge and Skills to the Federal Market

There are many ways in which pharmaceutical companies organize their sales forces. Some organize specific sales teams by product, where sales representatives represent one product and call on a variety of customer types, including physician offices, hospitals, and clinics. Others organize specific sales teams by customer type, whereby some sales representatives sell a variety of products to physician offices only, and other sales representatives sell a variety of products to hospitals only. Still others organize specific sales teams to be even more specialized, whereby sales representatives sell one product to one type of customer.

Need: A large pharmaceutical company needed a federal healthcare system training curriculum to prepare their existing hospital sales representatives to sell to a new customer, federal hospitals.

Solution: Informa designed the Selling in the Federal Market eLearning program as a primer to provide need-to-know information about government accounts that fall under the supervision of the Veteran's Health Administration, Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Indian Health Service. Informa followed the eLearning program with the Understanding the Federal Healthcare System Workshop. The workshop reinforced the information and provided learners with an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in preparation for calling on their federal hospital accounts.

SUCCESS STORIES

Access Issues: A Case Study Where Less Provides More

Gaining access is one of today's top challenges facing pharmaceutical sales representatives everywhere. When competitive factors are working against your product, gaining access to prescribers becomes all that more important.

Challenge: A large pharmaceutical company was experiencing new marketplace challenges. With new over-the-counter (OTC) drugs hitting the market, along with a product going off patent, competition was at an all time high. Now, more than ever, sales representatives needed to be talking with their customers about the clinical advantages of their products. 

Solution: Informa Training Partners provided a customized version of its Total Office Call Workshop. This workshop provided participants with the opportunity to step into the shoes of staff members at a physician office and experience the administrative and formulary challenges they face on a daily basis. Participants were given the opportunity to role play sales calls with each member of the physician office staff. Role play scenarios were crafted to address the key challenges facing their products: competition with generics and OTC products.

Gaining access to prescribers requires representatives to build relationships with administrative and other staff members within the physician office. This workshop helped participants gain the knowledge and skills they needed to work with the whole office, gain access to prescribers, and get their products written despite competitive challenges.

SUCCESS STORIES

Product Launch: A Case Study in Sustaining Momentum

Launching a new drug with a new sales force can be a daunting experience. You've got to provide the right clinical knowledge and the right selling skills at the right time to ensure that once the product launch occurs, your sales reps are ready to make the most of “launch momentum.”

Need: A small bio-tech company had a need to train 12 newly hired (but experienced) representatives on a soon-to-be-approved product for a rare genetic disorder. With FDA approval scheduled for just a few months away, their training department had a tight deadline. The 12 new hires already had a high level of clinical knowledge. What they needed was to boost their knowledge of the disease state and product to ensure they were prepared to get into higher level clinical discussions with geneticists and pediatricians who treat the disorder.

Solution: A multi-faceted curriculum design that included:

• Self-study Text-based Modules to provide critical background information on the indicated disease and its management as well as key product information.
• CD Program to bring to life and complement the content in the self-study text-based modules.
• Pivotal Study Quick Reference Guide to provide representatives with concisely summarized key study findings and associated selling messages.
• Physician Specialty Quick Reference Guides to provide tips on the specific types of targeted physicians (geneticists and pediatricians). Information included the scope of each specialty, the types of patients and disorders seen by these specialists, defining characteristics of the specialty, different practice settings, organization and staffing of their offices, other healthcare professionals with whom they interact, prescribing habits and referral patterns, and commonly used medical vernacular, acronyms, and terminology.
• Special Topic Workshop Sessions to be incorporated into the overall launch meeting. 

When it comes to launching a product, providing sales representatives with a comprehensive, blended learning  program can help ensure that they hit the ground running as soon as the product is approved.