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Prospecting Woes? Get A Better Strategy

In prospecting, your objective most often is to persuade a new customer to agree to meet with you face-to-face. To gain t

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

hat commitment, you must convince the prospect that you are someone worth meeting. Every customer’s first major buying decision is whether to buy you—the salesper

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

on. They’ll never decide to buy your products before they’ve bought you.

You must begin to “sell yourself” in your very first call on a new prospect.

Here is a

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

quick, four-step prospecting strategy that allows you to begin “selling yourself” immediately.

1. Introduce yourself: Use your people skills to politely introduce

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

yourself and your company. Say please, say thank you, and use the prospect’s name twice.

Example:

You: Hello, (first and last name) please?

Answer: This is he/

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

she.

You: Thank you, (first name). This is (your first and last name). I'm with (company).

2. Gain Attention: Make a very brief capabilities statement about yo

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

r company. What is the most appealing thing you can say about your company’s offerings? Choose a capability that is fairly universal, so as not to eliminate any

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

potential customers.

Example:

My company, (its name), has created a remarkable software product that makes it extremely easy for our customers to create and main

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

ain product catalogs, then produce them in just about any media from paper to Internet.

3. Create a Vision: What desirable goal can the prospect achieve due to th

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

e benefits of your products or services? Communicate that goal as vividly as you can.

Example:

With our Catalog Builder software, customers are dramatically red

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

cing their catalog costs and time requirements while growing their top-line sales due to the new markets they’re able to tap.

4. Ask for Commitment: Prepare to as

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

k for what you want to achieve as a result of making this call - for instance, a face-to-face meeting.

Example:

Would you be open to exploring how we might be ab

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

e to reduce your costs and drive more sales toward your company?

Start with this basic approach. Tinker, refine, and document your results until you have tailore

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

d the most successful prospecting strategy for your individual situation.

In The Field:

A major supplemental-insurance company improved its prospecting results d

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

amatically when it adopted a strategic framework, then documented and fine-tuned an approach that works best.

Before the company made that move, it assumed that a

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

dismal batting average was simply a fact of life in prospecting. “We were having trouble getting in the door,” admits district coordinator Lisa Thompson, “But we

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

didn’t realize that our ratio of calls to appointments was unnecessarily low until we implemented the Action Selling sales skills process to prospecting.

“We were

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

so focused on getting our message across before the prospect could tell us they weren’t interested that we missed the whole point of the call,” Thompson said. “A

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ter learning a unique selling process through Action Selling Sales Training, our calls are structured correctly [Introduction, Gain Attention, Create a Vision, and

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

Ask for Commitment], and we are crisp in our delivery yet focused on getting the appointment. Our ratio of calls to appointments is 38 percent better than before.

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Even in this technological age customer contact is essential. However, it needs to be carefully planned and contain value to the client. Here are 10 ways to do it successfully.

Smart companies rely on funnel vision for their marketing. By starting with the broad demographics most businesses are intimately familiar with, then drilling down to the idiodemographic characteristics of your ideal prospect, your marketing message pierces to the heart of her motivation.

“Know your customers”. Every business owner knows how important it is to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.

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