Selecting for Strengths: Sales Rep in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Last week, I asked the question: What strengths should we recruit for in sales representative in the pharmaceutical industry? Allow me to suggest some answers today. This fits nicely into the posts further down.

As I mentioned, Novartis did some interesting research on this subject and part of its findings are publicly available in an interesting presentation that can be found in the following link:

http://www.sloansalesconference.com/media/2008/keynote_-_Greg_Schofield_-_Novartis.ppt

According to this presentation, highly successful sales reps in Novartis have the following strengths:

· They purposefully probe and listen.

· They adapt their message to each Doctor

· They are not shy to using rather direct closing techniques with doctors

· They create call continuity, for example by taking good notes, by reviewing them before the next visit, and by defining goals and key messages for each visit.

· They are relationship focused. As such, they make sure that they deliver what they have promised and they never answer a doctor's question if they are not sure about the answer.

· They coordinate with teammates who visit the same doctor to make sure that they don't miss important information and adapt their messages and approach to what their colleagues have said.

· They have a strong will to win.

What talents themes of the Clifton StrengthsFinder (R) can you identify behind these strengths? In short, I would say:

1. Individualization or Connectedness or Empathy

2. Responsibilty and/or Relator

3. Discipline or Input

4. Command or Belief

5. Competition or Significance

The ability to probe and listen can come from various talents, but the ability to adapt the message to each Doctor suggests Individualization. Yet, I have also seen great sales people with Connectedness who are also able to “connect” their message to all they have learned about the doctor. And Empathy is certainly also very useful: if you feel that the doctor is nervous or angry, you may want to ask to come back in a week to make your presentation.

Behind “relationship focused”, I see the talents Relator and Responsibility. Relator may be obvious, but Responsibility is very important for med reps because doctors hate it when the rep promises something (like bringing a study or sample on his next visit) and then does not keep it. That is unlikely to happen for someone with strong Responsibility.

For “creating call continuity”, I see Discipline or Input. Discipline can be a thinking and striving talent; people with Discipline like structure and routine. They don’t mind taking notes and reading them before the next visit. People with Input often like collecting information and can create the habit (=strength) of taking notes of everything important or interesting. I myself have Input very strong and I can testify how strong the urge to take notes can be: if it was not so unethical (and inefficient), I would almost like to record every important conversation!

Input can also create the desire to coordinate with teammates to make sure that they don’t miss important information.

People with Command or Belief are “not shy to use direct closing techniques with doctors”, such as asking “Doctor, would you mind trying this new therapy with only five patients until my next visit?”, or “Doctor, can I leave this important study here for your reading and we talk about it in my next visit?”. Command may be obvious, but Belief may be less so. Yet, I have heard and read again and again that people with strong belief in what they are selling (or teaching) are powerfully persuasive. And I get the impression that a lot of the better performing med reps have high Belief. If the talent Connectedness manifests itself also in strong convictions, it can have a similar persuasive effect like Belief.

The obvious answer for “strong will to win” is Competition. To a lesser extent, Significance may also serve here.

Now that we know this, what are we going to do with it? If I understand Gallup and Marcus Buckingham correctly, we should not try to select for these talents. For one, as we have seen, different talents can result in similar strengths.

So instead, we should select directly for these strengths. Behavioral based interviewing can be helpful here. Asking questions like…

“Tell me about a time when you turned a doctor’s no into a yes!” or

“How important is it for you to win? To be the number one?” or

“Do you believe that one can persuade all doctors in the same way?” and if no, “Tell me why not?”, “How do you adapt your persuasion to different doctors?”

In the last question, you do not want to hear obvious generalities like age, gender, medical specialty, but deeper things like the emotions perceived in the doctor, the doctor’s presumed deeper interests or fears, and so on.

I would like to invite YOU to propose more behavioral-based questions in a comment to this blog. What would be your favorite questions and what answers would you want to hear?