Warm-up Questions/Warm-up Situations in Pharmaceutical Selling

The ideal definition of warm-up questions is when a Sales professional book up an appointment with a customer or a buyer and after exchanging a few pleasantries the sales professional begin the professional meeting.

The Warm-up situation is never discussed or described in any of the training programs in a structured manner and if not addressed carefully can lead to a disaster and eventually can spoil either the image of the company or the career of the new incumbent.

In both the situations, proper planning and care along with rehearsals with the new incumbent are required.

Now the point here is in Pharmaceutical selling is there any need for WARMUP QUESTIONS /WARM UP SITUATIONS and if the answer is YES, then what are those situation/s and how the pharmaceutical field professional should make use and capitalize this situation in his /her benefit.

Let us now first discuss those situations in which a Pharmaceutical sales professional can use/should use warm-up questions/Warm-up situations or those types of situations where a new incumbent takes over and he /she needs to be groomed/inducted for the territory or for benefit/growth of the pharmaceutical business:

1. A totally new Pharmaceutical organization is making an entry in a particular geographical location

2. A mid-size company whose geographical H.Qr was vacant lying vacant for a good period of time and the pharmaceutical field professional is making a comeback.

3. A reasonably big size pharmaceutical company /MNC is in operation and a new Pharmaceutical field professional joins the geographical territory and starts his field operation. ( or maybe his/her career)

4. The Pharmaceutical company  -invariably mid-size or small in size or business operation and has very high attrition and the company has failed to make an impact in the mind of the Doctor.

(pl be noted, here I will not discuss at all the type of warmup questions people can/should use in the new product launch, I will discuss this separately)

In all the above situations, in my opinion, the Training Manager or the Frontline Manager should make adequate preparations and should train the concerned field professional thoroughly so that there should be a smooth entry of the field professional, as invariably it is said that well begin is half done. It is extremely important that a candid launch pitch should be designed, prepared and developed and the concerned Pharmaceutical field professional under the guidance of experienced FLM/Training Manager should practice and rehearse the launch pitch.

Now, the question arises what type of launch pitch should be prepared /developed for the above FOUR given situations.

1. LAUNCH PITCH FOR A NEW PHARMACEUTICAL ORGANIZATION:

When I was working in U.P.-West, way back in 1995 and a new Medical Rep, nicely dressed up was initiating his business dialogue with a Physician ( almost of GP nature practice) but having a decent practice in the locality. The Medical Rep initiated the business talk like this :

"Respected Doctor , before we begin our professional association and meeting, is there any value in telling you a little bit about myself and my company first?"

(Pl, notice here, he used the word first. You must always remember to end it with the word "first" because if they respond with "Yes", it implies to the customer that you will have permission to ask the customer about them and their business – second; and unfortunately if they say NO, then you still have the option to move out of the conversation and seek an appointment for the next time, although the chances out of 10 times, 8/9 times, it will be Yes,)

(Also, you must have noticed here, he is also giving an opportunity to the Doctor to describe him/herself, and in my opinion, people just love to talk about themselves.)

The newly joined Medical Rep, then for approx..45-60 mins, conveyed the credentials of the business organizations without any support/LBL, but the tone, the language, the command on the business talk was close to perfection and the Doctors was fully captivated and absorbed by his introductory message and the concerned Medical Rep was able to secure much time for his business talk and could details his products easily.

When I enquired and asked him, he said that he rehearses his call just one night before and come to the Doctors call with full preparation as he said, that One poor call and especially the first call would delay his results for at least 6 months!

2.MID SIZE COMPANY H.Qr. WAS LYING VACANT…………

In this type of situation,( pl be noted this situation is entirely different as compared to the previous situation just discussed above) the respective FLM/Training Manager should classify the list of the Doctors and accordingly should plan the launch pitch. Doctors can be classified as :

a) Doctors don’t remember the company at all/Doctors are not prescribing the product at all ( in this situation we can use the launch pitch as stated above)

b) Doctors were prescribing the product but since the Rep. stopped visiting, so they also stopped prescribing.

In these type of situations, the Medical Rep. should do thorough market research and after gaining the complete customer profile should start visiting them with a customized “sales pitch”. The Medical rep. should begin the pitch by expressing his sincere gratitude towards the Brand /product which he /she was writing and assuring him for a professional business association.

Again here, one of my close friend who started his career at a Small but potential H.Qr. used to start his business call like : “Doctor Gupta Sir, I am highly thankful to you that you extended your full support to our Brand A, although for your support we don’t have anything to repay but I can express my sincere thanks and gratitude to you for your support and I hereby not only assure you , but commit you that from now onwards from my end you will be getting a high level of customer services. I am leaving my business card here for your kind perusal and for any type of customer service I am just a phone call away from you. Requesting you one again to pl initiate once again your kind support and patronage for the Brand A.”.

Again there used to be a high level of command on tone, voice, and language.

3.REASONABLY BIG SIZE PHARMA MNC IS IN OPERATION………….

Again in place like U.P-Central,. a big Indian Pharmaceutical company was in business and his Medical Rep. was about to retire and I knew this well in advance and this Indian Pharmaceutical company and his Medical Rep, both were carrying HUGE respect across the geographical territory and its PCPM too was very high. A smooth territory transition and business contact was a big challenge for me.

So, here succession planning was carried out very carefully and I made it a point that at least for SIX months the successor of that geographical territory should work under the shadow of that Senior rep. Also, on his last field working I kept his retirement party and invited to 50 Doctors of that territory, and on behalf of the Pharmaceutical company released an advertisement in the local daily and conveyed the best wishes for his retired life.

To the surprise, less and delight more of me, all the top 50 Doctors( not even a single Doctor was absent) came to attend his retirement party. Such was the impact of his respect and reputation.

The tactic worked very well and the business of the organization remained intact and the new incumbent was able to scale up his career too easily.

In these types of situation, where the stakes are very high, the respective FLM should need to take a tough and right stand and should convince his business organization about the succession planning and also should submit a detailed plan for the On-the-job training(OJT).

A classroom training may be called or planned later, but here OJT will play a very important role.

In this type of situation, the Senior Medical Rep. was able to overcome all the initial hitches or bottlenecks and was able to generate a very cozy atmosphere in the Doctor’s cabin which the new incumbent was able to capitalize the same very easily. So here, the problem of WarmUp questions was taken over by warmup intro and transition.

4. COMPANY SMALL IS SIZE OR MIDSIZE AND HAS VERY HIGH ATTRITION RATE…………

Companies where the attrition rate is very high and that too where the business is negligible, in this types of situation a new incumbent especially a FRESHER will fail miserably as he/she will have to face lot of resistance not only from the Medical fraternity but also form the chemist and stockiest too.

In these types of situations, the FLM should take the lead and he should induct the new incumbent with a great amount of care.

The FLM should make rehearse the new incumbent the answers of the tough and negative questions, like :

• I don’t prefer to give business these types of organizations
• Pl don’t come to me, as I am already committed to many other business organizations
• Why I should remember and write your products as I know that I will not get the services…. etc.etc.etc.

In these types of conditions, a new /fresher Medical Rep. is bound to fail due to his low motivation but with the help of FLM, he/she can overcome this situation.

In these types of situations, the initial launch pitch as discussed will not work. Here, the problem is of negative feelings (not attitude) and low confidence. The task here is to do some activities relating to Confidence-building measures esp.for the Doctors.

In one of my consulting assignment to a very small company, to overcome the initial resistance of the Doctors, we initiated the online emailer activities along with Whatsapp campaign on a 20% of the total Doctors and then through the online conversation, the FLM and with the newly inducted Rep. , joint calls were planned. The FLM used to initiate the business process and the newly inducted Rep used to watch the entire conversation and if not in the first call, then it was assured that in the second call the new incumbent should take the lead. Again here in these type of situations, On-the-job training only can help, where to the new incumbent lot of handholding is required, at least for first 2-3 months.

So, warm questions and warm-up situations, if anticipated and practiced properly,can yield huge benefits and will certainly lift the image and respect of the business organization.

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