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Your medical representatives (MedReps) are not performing well, and you are unsure who or what to blame. Is it the busy HCPs, the unmotivated teams, or the lack of another training?
You invest in another course for reps to improve product/industry knowledge, but this is just a red herring and does not bring the desired results. So, how do you optimize one of the costliest channels, face-to-face visits, and make MedReps’ work more impactful?
In this article, we answer that question. But before we dive in, let’s start by defining a medical sales job.
Medical Sales Representatives (MedReps) promote drugs, medical devices, or equipment to healthcare providers (HCPs) and pharmacists. They aim to convince providers that their products offer the best patient and organizational outcomes. To succeed, they must build strong relationships, address providers’ concerns, and offer advice when needed.
Their key responsibilities include:
What is getting in the way of your MedReps’ productivity and success? To answer this million-dollar question, you need to hear their concerns firsthand.
Here are some of the most common frustrations we have found on Reddit –– complaints you are likely to hear from sales representatives who are new to the field or looking to improve their results:
“HCPs are too busy to talk to me.”
“The ones who do talk just nod along without real engagement or feedback.”
“I struggle to balance being professional with building genuine relationships.”
Being a MedRep is not easy. They must be persuasive enough to get time with HCPs and engaging enough to make those conversations count. While reps’ skills play a big role, the right support can make all the difference in their success.
Whether you are a sales manager, commercial director, or C-suite executive, these recommendations will help boost your sales reps’ productivity and put an end to their challenges:
Clear goals give your MedRep team a sense of direction. Smart goal setting helps you avoid the spray-and-pray approach when you throw your “sales” spaghetti at the wall and hope some random acts will pay off someday.
Your goals should be specific, measurable, and time-bound. For example, a goal like “establish rapport with an HCP” is vague and does not provide clear direction. A better approach would be: “Create 20 email openers that could catch an HCP’s attention this week.”
Do not try to eat an elephant whole. Instead, break it into snackable pieces to make sure you stay motivated along the way.
One tip is to involve your reps in goal setting so they feel valued and invested in the outcomes. When they have a hand in defining their goals, it boosts their motivation and creates a sense of ownership over their work.
Many companies stick to relying on MedReps and emails, fearing the cost of adding more channels. However, in the best-case scenario, reps only reach 50% of HCPs, and over half of email users believe their messages sink into the spam void.
With such a large portion of the audience being overlooked, it puts extra pressure on reps to deliver better results –– something that, in some cases, is not physically possible. Sticking to the status quo is one of the fastest ways to shoot yourself in the foot. It only adds more to your MedReps’ workload without delivering the results you are aiming for.
The solution is to add more digital channels. This approach empowers your field force team to be more productive, as additional channels support their commercialization efforts.
For example, if an HCP does not open an email inviting them to schedule a face-to-face meeting, a MedRep could follow up with an SMS or WhatsApp message. After the visit, there is often no need for another costly in-person meeting to reinforce the message.
Instead, the MedRep can analyze the HCP’s past behavior and send personalized content via their preferred channel. Digital channels also give medical sales professionals the flexibility to engage at the perfect moment, which may be beyond business hours.
You are not helping your sales reps if they work in isolation from your digital channels. Imagine a rep finally securing a meeting with an HCP only to present the same information the HCP already received via their messenger. No engagement, no sale, no nothing.
To avoid this, build an omnichannel ecosystem to connect all your channels and manage from a single point of orchestration. MedReps should know exactly which message to reinforce during each meeting. This way, instead of sending disjointed messages, they contribute to an engaging dialogue where one interaction naturally flows into the next, keeping HCPs interested.
HCPs have only short breaks between seeing 30-50 patients, and MedReps face the challenge of fitting their visits into those brief windows. By equipping your sales team with analytics, you help them identify the perfect timing to reach out.
Analytics can also help cut costs. In-person visits are expensive, and if engagement through other channels is high, there may not be an urgent need to arrange a meeting. But when the engagement graph starts to dip, it is time to reconnect with an HCP through a face-to-face visit.
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HCPs often expect digital content to be available before meeting with medical sales representatives. This lets them dive into the topic and prepare their questions in advance. MedReps then engage later, reinforcing the key messages from the content.
To make a MedReps’ work easier, the content provided upfront needs to offer real value to HCPs and avoid feeling overly promotional. HCPs should see every interaction with your brand as an opportunity to make a positive impact on their patients’ lives, rather than just an interruption to their day.
In fact, research shows that over 30% of providers prefer content they can share with their patients. It is crucial that they understand how your information enhances their clinical knowledge and helps improve patient outcomes.
To add value, the content should be evidence-based and tailored to address the HCPs’ most pressing needs and challenges. Rather than zeroing in on specific products, consider providing insights on diagnostic support, patient management strategies, medical industry trends –– whatever is most relevant to them.
About 20% of HCPs prefer short, bite-sized content that they can easily consume during their breaks. One-pagers, short videos, infographics with stats and data, or quick podcasts are great ways to engage professionals without taking away the time they need for patient care. Once a sales rep notices high engagement, they can offer more detailed content for after-hours learning.
Despite all the buzz around artificial intelligence (AI), only 2% of pharmaceutical companies are actually using it for marketing. AI is a great way to help medical sales reps work faster and more efficiently, while keeping costs down.
Some content authoring tools, like eWizard, come with built-in AI-driven virtual assistants that help reps hit two birds with one stone: A) they can onboard more effectively, and B) they can quickly locate the necessary documents.
The AI assistant boosts the confidence of new medical reps, as they no longer overwhelm the team with endless questions. Plus, if the pharma company has a large content database, the field force can easily find the materials and create content tailored to specific HCPs.
Viseven also offer the AI virtual assistant as a separate service. You can integrate it into your web interface or popular messaging platforms.
Soft skills matter just as much, if not more, than hard skills. Sure, medical reps need to stay on top of the latest industry trends and clinical research to have meaningful conversations during their visits. But believe it or not, that is not the whole picture.
Investing in reps’ emotional intelligence training is going to pay off in the long run. This is the core skill that will ensure reps can get healthcare professionals to make time for them, stay engaged in the conversation, and build trusting relationships.
For instance, if HCPs are just nodding along without asking questions, a medical rep needs to know when to step in with their own questions to break that unengaged, polite silence. They need to know what kind of questions to ask to get the conversation flowing. The golden rule is this: if there is no active conversation, reps are leaving providers with a million objections they can use later to reject working with the brand.
When you invest in emotional intelligence training, you are helping your sales reps learn how to kick off a conversation, spot when HCPs are just being polite but are not really engaged, and understand what is stopping them from collaborating. For example, there is no point in trying to convince HCPs that your drug is better if their main concern is the medical centers’ budget. A good training program helps them engage meaningfully, uncover the real objections, and come up with solid arguments to turn things around.
Med reps can get so caught up in meeting the needs of HCPs that they forget who their real customers are. At the end of the day, everything should always come down to the patient.
Encourage your sales reps to focus more on patient outcomes rather than just product features. It is important that your team does not just read the brochures but provides technical details that can help improve patient care.
What distinguishes good med reps from great ones is that the good ones are just focused on selling, while the great ones are focused on solving problems. Good reps are all about hitting their targets, but great reps are paying attention to the outcomes of their interactions, leaving a lasting impact.
Simply offering another training session to your MedReps will not cut it. You need to be strategic when it comes to technology, processes, people, and mindset.
The Viseven team can assist with developing an omnichannel strategy, ensuring that your MedReps are supported by a network of connected channels. We help set up the necessary tech ecosystem and offer AI-driven solutions to boost efficiency during reps’ onboarding and content production.
We also provide data analytics services to ensure that MedReps’ work is based on solid evidence, not guesses. Our clients get reports with user-friendly data visualizations that make decision-making and collaboration way easier.
Additionally, our medical writing team has years of experience in the field. We know exactly how to create valuable content for HCPs that hits close to home.
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