Five Things You Need to Know About Your Physician Customer

In many cases, the sales process concentrates on what needs to be accomplished, forgetting the needs and needs of the customer doctor. In the past few years, doctor time has been reduced to about 80 seconds per call, which tends to focus more on the agenda than what the customer needs. In this article, I'd like to focus on five things you need to know about your doctor's customers.

Doctor is a problem solver

Think about what your doctor does every day. They enter the examination room and ask the patient, “What's wrong?” Or “What ’s coming here today?” They are looking for problems that have taken patients to the office. They begin asking questions to understand the problem, collect data through trials and diagnostic tests, and finally develop a treatment plan to resolve the problem. This is the world where doctors live in their daily lives. Dr. Michael Kessler has taught this concept for many years in training classes. A few years ago, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies promoted role play for large physicians / representatives. During the break, I walked to one of the doctors and asked what she liked about what the representative was doing. She replied, “I hate it when they come in and start asking questions!” I thought probing was part of every drug sales model in the world! When the next representative came to call this doctor, the representative started with this question. “Doctor, what is the most important side effect to avoid when treating Disease X?” The doctor said gastrointestinal upset was most important to her. The representative showed how the features and benefits of her product can solve this problem and ended. The doctor agreed to write a product for patients experiencing gastrointestinal upset. I was worried waiting to hear the doctor's feedback to the person who did exactly what I said she hated. The boy thought she was going to get it! But she did not! In fact, the doctor said it was one of the best presentations she heard that day. After the resignee resigned, I asked my doctor to explain why he praised the representative who started the question on the phone when he said he disliked the question. “It ’s easy. Within the first 15 seconds, I found a problem that I can solve with her medicine.” Because the doctor is a problem solver, Need to present the product as a solution!

Doctors make decisions based on scientific evidence

Physicians are scientists who make decisions using fair scientific evidence rather than marketing information. When doctors try to discover what the patient is doing during the visit, they collect as much scientific information as possible. They do this by taking a history and body and performing a series of tests such as blood chemistry, electrocardiogram, and x-ray. The point is that all this information is fair scientific information. They have been taught to do this by medical schools. The same is true if the doctor decides to switch to another drug. Doctors need and want fair scientific information. Examples of fair scientific information include clinical research, peer-reviewed clinical journals, and package inserts. In a study conducted by Accenture in 2003, 80% of physicians stated that Peer Review / Clinical Journals had the most impact on prescribing habits. In February 2005, Med Ad News reported that "the key to providing long-term meaningful relationships is focused on providing meaningful resources, especially clinical data, to physicians and their staff." did. Each year the Health Strategies Group publishes an access report “The ability to present clinical data in a clear and easy-to-understand way”, it ranks among the top 10 doctors seeking sales representatives. Physicians are scientists who need fair scientific information to make decisions about using their products. When giving presentations to doctors, clinical studies are used to review journal articles and other fair scientific information. Tell them what they told us for years. They don't need what you think you need to hear!

Doctor listens when sales representative presents benefits

The doctor reported in the focus group that the salesperson would listen when he said, "What does this mean for you ..." or "What is the benefit for your patient ...". Play a role. The reason is simple. Profits solve problems, doctors are problem solvers! The old maxim that features tell and Benefits Sell can be applied here. The following are examples of how benefits can solve problems: Let's suppose that the problem that doctors are struggling with is allergic patients who complain that they have breakthrough symptoms while taking BID drugs. Longer duration characteristics do not solve this problem, but the benefits of longer allergic symptoms alleviate breakthrough allergic problems. The way to explain the features and benefits in the presentation is “Zamfir is longer acting than current drugs”. “This means for the patient that the patient will alleviate allergic symptoms longer and reduce the problem of sudden symptoms.” Unfortunately, according to the survey, a typical salesperson mentions one benefit Present 7-8 functions before doing. Try to present the benefits of the feature on the next phone call and see what the doctor looks up when you say "Doctor, what does this mean for the patient ...".

Doctors are taught to communicate in a specific way

All health professionals have been taught standard methods of communicating medical information. It is called SOAP. Doctors use this process to document clinical information, present patient cases and clinical papers, and communicate patient information. Let me give you an example. If you have seen a medical program on a TV such as Gray & # 39; s Anatomy, the EMT team probably handed the patient to the ER team and heard such a conversation. “I am an adult male, approximately 46 years old, BP 90 to 130 years old, pulse is 82 years old, MI is suspected, 10 mg Epi recommended.” S stands for subjectivity. Subjective information is about 46 years old adult white male. O stands for Objective. Objective information comes from the data they collect during post-processing. BP 130 or more 90, pulse 82. A is an abbreviation for assessment. Possible myocardial infarction. Finally, P stands for Plan. In this case, the recommended treatment plan is an injection of 10 mg of epinephrine. All clinical studies are set up in this way. Subjectivity sets the problem that the study is working on. The purpose is to provide important information about the study, such as study author, journal, date, number of patients. In the evaluation, the results of the study are reported. The plan then gives the author's recommendation. Two very practical ways to use this healthcare communication tool are to present product and clinical research information in this format. When presenting product information, set up a problem that the product can solve, use the product's features and benefits to solve the problem, enter into a doctor's dialogue and experience that specific problem Close the doctor to use the product. When presenting a clinical study that sets the problem using this format, report the results and author recommendations in the study information [author, journal, date, and study data]. Using this universal language when speaking to all health professionals will help you gain confidence and present information in a clear and concise manner. Many people have been trained to present clinical studies in 30 seconds using this format. If you are a bilingual sales representative, you will not go to a Spanish-speaking doctor in English. Now that you understand the doctor's language, stop speaking your native language, start speaking their language, and watch their prescription behavior change!

Do it correctly because the doctor expects you to close

New hires are afraid to shut down, and lifetime employees do not want to close hard and hurt good relationships. In fact, best practice studies show that consistently closed representatives are more successful than non-representatives. In fact, doctors expect sales representatives to close and actually do so. Over the years, through research and focus groups, doctors have told us what they like and dislike about how we are closed. Below you will find information gathered from the Physician Focus Group about what you want your doctor to do at the end and what you don't want.

Do not request the next 10 scripts
We are all trained and evaluated to ask doctors for the next 10 scripts. So why do doctors hate so close? Because it is impractical for them to ensure that the next 10 patients through the door will be good candidates for your medicine. Closing is simply asking the doctor to do something. You can ask to read clinical research and journal articles. Be creative! A more practical end is to ask your doctor to write your medicine for patients who are experiencing problems that your medicine can solve.

Do not request 100% of the script
Doctors regard this as unrealistic and greedy. Because 100% of patients do not work. All medications have certain contraindications, warnings, and side effects that prevent them from being used in 100% of patients. More realistically, let your doctor know which patients are not good candidates for your medicine. For example, “Dr. I just want to let you know that Zamfir should not be used for patients who are currently taking beta-blockers or MOAs.” Doctors thank you for your frank and fair balance The

Don't be forced
I know that you are saying that it is an aggressive representative to get business. We asked the focus group doctors what they meant. Below is an example where they gave us a closeness to an aggressive representative. The person in charge sold a diabetic drug during the role play of the doctor / person in charge. They published a study that drug B was more effective than drug A, and the doctor closed to switch the patient from drug A to drug B. Explaining this scenario after role play, all the doctors began to laugh out loud. They said they never switch patients who have been managed for 10 years based on one clinical study. They said it would not be so push to ask drug A patients experiencing problems to “consider” drug B.
Summarize what was discussed before exiting

In a focus group conducted by Novartis Ophthalmologist in Canada on the role play of the doctor / representative, the doctor was asked that he had noticed a really good representative. One thing they reported was that a really good representative would summarize what they discussed before closing. The doctor said this helped remind them why they should use your medicine. A good way to summarize is “The doctor based on the fact that Zamfir's longer duration of action provides 24 hours of allergy symptom relief that alleviates the problem of sudden symptoms. For patients experiencing breakthrough symptoms, Do you write for Zamfir? "
Always provide dosing information

There are hundreds of medicines to remember in GP or FP, but every day I ask my doctor to write a medicine prescription without telling my doctor how to write a prescription. In a recent study published in a pharmaceutical journal, patients reported that doctors complained that they did not provide enough information about how to take the drug. Is this because they don't provide the information they need to pass to the patient? At the end of every phone call, you will need to remind your doctor of product dosing information. “Doctor, I just want to remember that the dosage of Zamfir is 1 tablet BID.”

Overview
Let's look at sales calls from the customer's perspective. After all, the call is about us, not us. In just 80 seconds to impact, we need to focus on what our customers need, not what they want. Focus on CUSTOMER over SALES by presenting the product as a solution to the problem and using scientific information presented in SOAP format to present the benefits of the function and close it properly!

Jim has worked in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry for nearly 20 years, working for companies such as Novartis, Allagan, Johnson and Johnson. He is currently the president of TAP Consulting Company, providing industry training and performance consulting. Jim has two copyrights to credit and countless hours of role play for doctor focus groups and doctors / reps. You can contact him at 770-596-1498 or price56@comcast.net. Log on to http://www.tapconsultingcompany.com for courses that teach the principles described in this article.