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How many times have you purchased leads from an Internet lead provider or direct mail vendor, only to wonder…

Where are my leads?
Has anyone called my lead?
Did we sell cars from our leads?
Are there any referrals?

At the end of the month did your lea

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

d provider leave you with more questions than answers? What happens with your lot-ups? Are there follow-up and closing opportunities at the bottom of your sales rep’s drawer? What about those phone calls that come straight into the dealership? Is your lead on the back

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

Examples of combination products may in

of a salesman’s business card?

It has been our experience that dealers are most successful when they know which leads are producing the best return on their investment. It is important to have several lead sources but it is more important to know the performance each l

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

ead source. The real question isn’t whether or not you are tracking your leads but how accurate are your numbers. Is it a matter of who’s calling or who’s buying?

When I discuss tracking leads, I am referring to the art of accountability. General Managers (GM’s) expec

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

accountability from salesmen, F&I, management and inventory. A GM’s livelihood depends on accountability but when it comes to lead generation they are comfortable with uncertainty.

With leads coming from internet, television, radio, and mailers, it can be a daunting ta

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

Combination pro

sk to determine which lead is giving you the best ROI. True accountability comes at a price; you have to invest both the finances and the time. A lead tracking system requires technology, process and most importantly commitment, commitment, commitment.

If tracking your

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

internet, television, radio, and mailer leads wasn’t enough, you also have to consider your Lot-ups. Now with five possible lead sources it is understandable why a GM would not take lead tracking serious. What I find most amazing is that a dealer will spend $1,000 to $

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

0,000 a month on advertising but have little accurate knowledge of their ROI.

Dealers have heard every sales pitch when it comes to lead tracking systems and their technological advances. If a dealer is not willing to mandate and enforce compliance with their lead track

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

ing system from their SubPrime department then there isn’t a cheap enough system.

The most popular lead tracking system today is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. At the 2006 NADA Meeting in Orlando there were over two hundred different CRM’s companies.

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

Needless to say, there are many similarities between the different CRM’s but there are a few key elements you want to see in a CRM.

All CRM’s should have these basic functions: gather data, track that data, and give you enough information to analyze the data. I see man

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

dealerships use a CRM for both there Prime and SubPrime traffic. The key problem to this approach is way SubPrime is sold. If you are running a dedicated SubPrime department correctly, you need to track information that is unique to the SubPrime sales.

The information

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

Following aspects would a

you won’t get in a prime CRM are Look-to-Book ratios, Stip Management, Contracts-in-Transit (CIT’s), appointments made/shown ratios, and most importantly your advertising ROI. With so much money being spent on advertising it is more important to know who is buying versus

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

who is calling. The only way for marketing to be profitable is to sell more cars: plus business!

So now it is time to buy a CRM, what do you look for? First of all, make sure the CRM is internet based. A web based system allows you to access you information from anyw

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

here you have internet access. You can keep track of the dealership while you are on the road or in your own living room. If a CRM is not web based then you have to download it on your computer, every time there is an update to the system a rep from the CRM company has

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

o come to the dealership and download new information from a disk. If you computer crashes or your local server goes down then you are at risk for losing your information.

If a CRM company has a web based system, make sure you ask about their redundancy plan. The redun

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

dancy plan refers to how a vendor backs up their data. I have heard too many stories of dealerships losing most, if not all, of their lead information because of a system failure. One of the key things to look for in a web based CRM is dual servers that back each other

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

up so that even if your computers crash you still have all of your lead information. Most importantly, let an outside vendor build and maintain your CRM. You don’t make money building computer programs, you make money hanging paper, rehashing deals, and landing cars on

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

ustomers.

The key is beginning with the end in mind! Know what you want CRM to do for you. You also need to know what you are willing to sacrifice both, with your finances and your commitment to success. Once you commit to selling SubPrime properly, you have to begin w

.

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

ith research. You should research companies that sell advertising, leads, and CRM’s. There are companies that offer each element individually but there are also companies that offer all three in one solution. One thing I want to stress is that there are no quick-fixes,

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

but there are solutions that stand out above the rest.

Having readily available Business Intelligence that gives you the tools to “inspect what you expect” and to be certain your marketing dollars are returning the gross they should is the reason for having a CRM at all

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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Using an online registration system to register attendees for your next event can significantly diminish your workload and increase attendance, but automated follow-up by email is essential for the success of your event.

Building a small business is hard work. In the initial period of most small businesses, one or two people are trying to do everything until the business grows enough to diversify functions and hire assistance.

Even professionals can say something they wish they didn't. It's even more important that executives and managers recognize the importance of what they say, how it may be interpreted and what to do if a mistake is made.

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