subject: Training Requirement For Pharmaceutical Sales Manager [print this page] Training Requirement For Pharmaceutical Sales Manager
If there is one area of training that all pharmaceutical sales managers need to go through then I would recommend going through managing processes training. It is a whole lot different from managing results, like what is happening in the industry right now, and it is proven to give better return on effort too. I will set forth my argument herein and as I do, I suggest you keep an open mind, especially, if you have people reporting to you.
For over 60 years, the practice of sales management has always been the same. Managers are expected to drill their team members to deliver results and team members are expected to deliver sales figures. What makes this figure? It is the number of closing they register for that day.
Plus, the customers are expecting salesperson to close them on every occasion. It is almost insane for salesperson not to close a customer during sales call. Many techniques were designed by sales experts to reach this end, and some of them are just too corny and intimidating.
But things have changed and right now, customers have cast their vote by showing their hatred to the way they are treated during sales calls. Because of this, many companies have their revenue suffered and have been downgraded or ceased to exist. Lost sales are not entirely due to bad closing techniques but are heavily influenced by them.
Despite the fact that sales figures have not changed much during the past years, managers still continue with the pattern of result obsession. They knew it is not effective but they could not imagine a better alternative to it, for example, focusing on process.
For the record, focusing on process does not coming from the idea of doing something opposite from focusing on result. It has a sound base and can be proven scientifically. A cognitive science expert had conducted a field study to test it hence promoting the idea of focusing on process. It is based on the concept that salesperson can control what lead to closing but can never control the actual sales closing.
In other words, salesperson could not control the ultimate outcome.
