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By Peter Francis
President, Clinical Laboratory Sales Training LLC
05/21/08
For hospital outreach programs and commercial labs, having field representation is essential for maintaining business and organically growing it. If there is no one to cultivate relationships, the customer may easily find someone who appreciates its business, responds quickly to lab-related problems, possesses industry knowledge, and helps in the overall equation of joint venture and win-win.
It is interesting to look at how the decisionmaking process for selecting a lab typically works. There are two aspects of this: (1) the interrelated thinking process a client goes through when making a change and (2) what a prospect considers when selecting a lab. In the case of the latter, for a physician office setting, much of it depends upon the accepted insurances, the location of the nearest patient service center (assuming a no-draw environment), and connectivity. Continuing on the list are items such as the lab’s location, reputation, client services accessibility and expertise, the effectiveness and overall knowledge of the marketing person (industry intelligence, responsiveness, etc.), and depending on the state’s mandate or office philosophy, pricing. It’s a given that clients assume and expect accurate results in today’s environment.
This article will concentrate on two components: (1) the predictable pattern that buyers progress through and (2) how the salesperson can play a significant role during that process.
Implementation Stage
A field rep plays an important function in this phase, and, with all due respect, he or she must be extremely thorough when setting up a client to avoid frustrating and embarrassing problems. The phrase “the devil is in the details” accurately applies! Once there is education on things such as test ordering, supplies, pick-up, resulting, etc., the customer and the lab subsequently “settle in” together in a business relationship with the intention of a win-win outcome.
Recognition of Needs Stage
Over time, however, come changes to the situation. It could be within a few months or much longer (years); the point is there is customer recognition of issues with its primary lab. What was once condoned or regarded as “a little annoying” now becomes sufficiently acute—it’s happening with more regularity or impacting patient care, the office reputation, office productivity, etc. Sometimes, up-front promises may not have been kept or have taken too long to implement. The field rep scrambles to rectify the situation, but the “bruise” has begun its inexorable crawl into the mind of the client. Anything that goes awry—from the simple to the significant—may compound the situation.
On the other side of the coin, a sharp competitive salesperson can possibly “outsell” the current lab vendor by maintaining high visibility to gain a better understanding of the operation, probing to uncover the client’s likes and dislikes, discovering who the influential people are and who the ultimate decisionmaker is, etc. During this time, he or she is building a strong rapport with key individuals and explaining how his or her lab does things differently that is significant to the individual and/or practice. Thus, the recognition of needs stage can have two forces that act independently or in tandem, annoying problems that mushroom out of control and a diligent and persuasive sales rep creating a “better mousetrap” story.
Evaluation of Options Stage
Depending on many factors, the buyer may eventually decide to take action and look for alternatives (about 2 percent to 3 percent of potential buyers at any given time). It wants a lab to not only fix its problem(s), but also offer something more from the buying experience than participating in a reverse auction (several lab sellers and one buyer). Enter the master-class, 21st century sales rep. He or she probes to uncover the past issues and explains how his or her lab can solve the client’s problem(s). In addition—and most important—the marketing person probes to find other unrecognized problems and provides unanticipatedsolutions by linking features and benefits, ultimately creating value that is unique from the competition (or the customer didn’t know was available through its current lab!).
In essence, the lab representative brings industry knowledge, competitive intelligence, and insightful business acumen to the client’s buying experience. He or she employs questioning skills that allow the buyer to draw its own positive conclusions—a critical factor in sales. Behavioral psychology research has shown that people value what they say and value their own conclusions more than they value what they are told. You can’t have a representative tell someone what it needs and then proclaim that the rep can help him or her get there! The sales rep will undoubtedly fail and lose respectability. The customer would rather think through what it needs but have the gentle and humble assistance of a salesperson who asks the right questions to aid it in seeing clearly for itself. It is analogous to a tapestry. The back of it is vague, full of knots, and perplexing. But if it is turned around, it transforms into a beautiful scene. So goes the situation with customers who may not perceptibly understand certain issues they were enduring with their current lab vendor. It takes a skilled representative to “reverse the tapestry” and create the “ah-ha” moment for the client.
Resolution of Concerns and Convergent Phase
This is where the prospect moves into a period of subtle anxiety stemming from a fear of the consequences of making the wrong decision. If these fears are satisfactorily mollified and suppressed, its thinking converges to select a new lab vendor (or expand a current relationship with a secondary lab). The process then circles back to the implementation stage.
Accruing Benefits
It is important for the salesperson to understand this broad description of the “buyer’s cycle,” because it can impact on how he or she formulates his or her strategy to close new business. All too often, the benefits the customer realizes accrue after it has started using a lab. It gets its pick-ups, receives results in a timely manner, sees its rep occasionally, obtains updates, and overall, feels satisfied it made the right choice. But the master-class representative creates value prior to the selection/implementation stage. He or she attempts to build an atmosphere of mutual benefit in the exchange of time before he or she tries to sell anything to the prospect. Since lab services are typically viewed as a commodity, one of the best ways to differentiate your service is to accrue benefits along the way. Consequently, the lab rep must be knowledgeable in many areas, especially in competitive intelligence and the basic differences his or her lab offers.
It may seem obvious, but sales reps need to be forever mindful that the client controls the relationship and the client must be well served first! Activities include as explaining the clinical significance of new tests or methodologies, the benefits (or improvement) of a new transport device, different connectivity options, PSC openings, modifications to ICD.9 coding, updated insurance roster, reference range shifts, the hiring of a new medical or lab director (especially helpful if the prospect knows and respects the new hire), doctors opening a new practice in town, offices adding providers, and so forth. Of specific importance is anything that will aid the prospect in helping their patients (e.g., test education pamphlets, new PSC location, and revised billing procedure) and improve a deeper understanding of its competition.
These types of conversations that keep the prospect informed and assist it to better serve their patients and/or demonstrate important benefits to its practice are highly regarded as opposed to someone who simply “checks in” or says he or she will offer the lowest price. This is relationship-building at its finest. By demonstrating customer interest and establishing solid rapports, it leads the way to inviting the client to want to do business with the representative. Meaningful dialogue needs to occur (typically) with several individuals (especially the decisionmaker) before offering a proposal or asking for the business. It all translates into being customer-focused. It is making evident that the sales rep has a desire to establish a mutually beneficial exchange and that he or she is willing to invest time, energy, and knowledge before the sale to make that happen.
Summary
Understanding the decisionmaking cycle and that benefits need to be accrued throughout this predictable process is central to selling any laboratory’s service. A salesperson cannot expect a prospect to make a primary lab selection until the buyer has proceeded through the above stages. The marketing person needs to keep in mind several things about his or her job:
- He or she needs a set of skills that will help him or her bring extraordinary value into the selling arena
- He or she needs to create value by providing insight (e.g., offering solutions to current exposed problems and even uncovering unrecognized problems and generating unanticipated solutions)
- He or she needs to continually expand his or her expertise and better understand his or her competition
- He or she needs to develop questioning skills such that he or she deftly allows the customer to draw its own conclusions
- He or she must sell benefits throughout the decisionmaking process (i.e., not expect to win a proposal only when the client decides to make a change in labs).
The business of selling your lab service means that the prospect and the sales rep make a trade for mutual benefit. The master-class representative initiates and facilitates this free-will exchange.
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