Optimizing Your Lab’s Sales Force Performance <br>Part 2: Field Coaching

Sales coaching remains indispensible to great salesmanship. When you consider the world’s top performers (in any business), they practice and hone their craft on a regular basis, and they do it with a professional coach. The reason? Simply put, individuals need someone else to observe how they do something. We cannot see our own swing, and human nature does not encourage self-analyzation.

For those labs who market their services, the field rep can report to a variety of positions: the owner, lab manager, sales manager, outreach manager, pathologist, marketing manager, etc. Regardless of the title, the “boss” should help their employee(s) grow in their job and expand their capabilities and effectiveness. A common misconception abounds when labs hire an “experienced” field person. The hiring manager automatically assumes this individual possesses a golden set of hardwired sales attributes that never, ever require continuing education or mentoring. The fact remains, nothing could be further from the truth!

Many organizations may neglect ongoing training and coaching of their field personnel. Sales managers typically become mired in performing mundane managerial tasks − reviewing call reports, writing monthly reports, putting out fires, attending internal meetings, visiting clients, working on special projects, etc. If a lab director or owner (with no sales management experience) oversees sales, their plate naturally crams up with every day challenges; they push developing their marketing associate to the proverbial back burner. When this happens, the field rep may continue with under-developed sales techniques and persist in struggling within his/her territory due to the absence of professional oversight. Despite the fact that many labs do not have a full-time sales manager, some believe in the true value of training and coaching. They hire an ad hoc, experienced professional to help with the growth potential of the marketing person. A monthly one-on-one with the representative, and/or “ride-alongs” combined with intermittent phone calls provides an innovative solution because of the potential benefits to the representative and the company. In addition, the cost is far less when compared to a full time manager’s salary and benefits.

Field Coaching

Besides developmental coaching sessions (addressed in Part 1 of this series), a different type of coaching takes place during work encounters. This latter activity carries out a very important component of cultivating a field rep’s effectiveness and overall skill set. As mentioned previously, everyone needs someone else with an astute eye to observe strengths and possible areas of improvement. In addition, praising a representative for a job well done accomplishes two things. It gives tremendous motivation and improves self-confidence. Unfortunately, offering immediate kudos by management has become a dying art.

Some labs provide on-going sales training to their marketing staff. They understand the significance of repetition and establishing a firm foundation of tactical and strategic sales techniques. This is in addition to equally important ancillary subjects such as billing, connectivity, compliance, technical updates, etc. However—and here’s the important part—irrespective of a well-designed and taught sales training class, it loses most of its effectiveness unless field coaching reinforces it. The majority of sales training professionals will avow that 80-90% of skills taught in a classroom evaporate in the absence of follow-up mentoring. Coaching remains that essential. Period.

There are three primary areas of field coaching:

Coaching relationship development
Coaching strategy
Coaching tactics

Coaching Relationship Development

Every marketing person affirms that establishing a good relationship with a prospect or current client translates into the sine qua non of his or her job. However, observing (from a manager’s perspective) just how “deep” the rep has developed a client relationship and with whom remains an interesting exercise. In a doctor’s office setting, the field person typically fosters a good rapport with one individual (e.g., the office manager) and casual “howdy” connections with most of the staff—including (maybe) the providers. However, in order to become a valued representative, amassing solid relationships throughout the office drives the ambition of top salespeople. This may take time, but it can become very effective in staving off competitive threats, as well as potentially increasing business.

Before going further, there needs an overview of how one forms business relationships. We will begin with a metaphor, calling it a Relationship Ladder. The first rung starts with billions of people—those who do not know you by name. The next rung consists of people who know you by name. The following step equates to those who like you. Moving higher to the fourth rung are the people who are friendly with you. These individuals will typically converse more than their immediate business needs — they talk about their hobby, vacation, children’s activities, etc. The focus of this level establishes and shares common interests. The next level — the fifth — elevates to more rarified air in which people respect you. This means that the client has a high opinion of your integrity and knowledge. The sixth step—the very top of the ladder—holds the people who value a relationship with you. They believe it manifests their best interest to solidify this rapport. They feel you are there to help them.

It bears repeating that getting to the top of the Relationship Ladder equals a long-term proposition. Depending on various factors—the number of interactions, what the rep does, how it’s done and how consistently it’s done—will determine where the representative stands on the Ladder.

Understanding this hierarchy structure becomes vital because the coach can subsequently visualize where his representative’s rapport melds with various individuals within a customer’s setting. Following a sales or service call, the coach can ask his rep: “Where would you say your main contact at this office sees you on the Relationship Ladder?” What about the decision-maker? How about the doctor’s nurse? The other influencers? Hearing the rep’s subjective assessment provides a good opportunity for an interactive discussion. Things become even more transparent when the manager has phone conversations with various customer staff members, including the provider(s). Ultimately, nothing else counts except the client’s opinion.

Developing a Valued Relationship

The representative may ask, “So, boss, how do I gain respect and develop a valued relationship?” Most prospects and customers with whom the rep does not have a good relationship expect him to do self-serving things. However, when a representative does the opposite—unexpected and unselfish acts—he inexorably begins a slow process of building respect and credibility because he shows a caring and interested attitude. Much of this comes from asking people what they treasure in life, what their hobbies are, where they like to go on vacation, the sports they enjoy, where they went to school, what got them into this occupation, what movies they enjoy, etc. Of course, a rep should converse about business-related topics, such as an available test, updated ICD.9 codes, new methodologies, a change in supplies and so forth. The getting-to-know-you conversations, especially, take time, but over the course of a number of interactions, it facilitates learning about the office personnel and providers. If the salesperson understands what others value and knows their individual traits, clients are much more likely to do two things: express what they need professionally and value the relationship. Bringing in an article from the Internet, magazine or newspaper on a subject of interest is one example of going above and beyond. Sending or personally giving a birthday card will universally produce a smile and an appreciation of the thoughtfulness. Uncovering an unrecognized problem the client has not noticed creates value and materializes into a distinct and powerful tool. This type of customer focus separates a representative from other competitors. In addition to doing these things, the salesperson’s experience and lab/industry business acumen contributes to building trust and credibility, leading to higher rungs on the Relationship Ladder.

What Does the Rep Think Should Be Done?

Once the manager has a grasp of all that the sales/service rep knows and has done to build the relationship, he should ask the field person for ideas about the next best thing to further the relationship. A question might be, “Based on what you have learned so far in Dr. Otto’s office, are there any more questions you should ask ________ the next time you’re there?” In addition, the coach can ask, “What unexpected and thoughtful actions could you do that would demonstrate your interest about what’s important to ________ at Dr. Otto’s office?”

What Do You and the Rep Agree Upon?

At this point, the coaching process should move from fact-finding and idea generating to accountability. The field person should agree on the specific actions he will take over the next six months or so to strengthen relationships even more.

Coaching the Strategic Aspects

The first call on a never-before-seen prospect should be devoted to qualifying and cultivating a strategy. Following that and depending upon the circumstance of the call-cycle, the manager can offer insightful questions that will demarcate the marketing person’s awareness of the account strategy. For example, does the representative know:

Who plays what role in the account: decision-maker, influencer, mentor and administrator?
How the office makes lab decisions?
How the office orders tests?
The degree of influence of each person?
What basic differences his lab has over the competition?
What warning signals are lurking (missing information, uncertainty, uncontacted staff members)?
What the response modes are of each key contact person (interested, even keel, uninterested)?
His competition inside and out — what are the strengths and limitations?
Where prospects fall in the sales funnel?
What is the commitment objective and valid reason for seeing the client?
What, if any, are the client’s expressed needs?

These are important questions to ask that help form a good account strategy.

Coaching the Tactical Components

There are four major areas in the tactical aspect of a sales call:

Preliminary Stage – opening the conversation with topics of mutual interest or a benefit.
Investigation Stage – using open-ended questions to find out the client’s situation, what their needs are, what problems they face with the current lab service, what are the unrecognized problems and what kind of consequences these problems pose.
Demonstrating Capabilities Stage – discussing features and linking them to benefits with correlation to the client’s expressed needs.
Commitment Stage – understanding the contact person’s level of commitment and then advancing the sale forward or closing the sale.

It goes beyond the scope of this paper to detail each of the stages. There remains a significant amount of background knowledge required to create meaningful dialogue within these four areas. Teaching the representative about the intricacies of probing and developing needs, practicing with role-plays, observing and coaching in real-life scenarios synthesize into producing a master-class sales rep.

Summary

The best sales organizations teach their managers to be coaches—to guide their sales reps by asking questions instead of playing a dictatorship role. In-the-field ride-alongs equates to one the best and venerated methods in observing pre-formed or classroom skills. In addition, providing positive feedback remains one of the most effective and important constituents in an employee’s development.

Excuses abound regarding not coaching sales reps. The most common argument pertains to the lack of time. But, many sales leaders are missing a significant opportunity if they do not make time. Coaching channels the rep to the next level. It means establishing a priority for the sales manager to learn how to properly coach and do it consistently. If the organization has no sales manager, it means hiring an experienced ad hoc consultant for periodic one-on-one interactions. Ultimately, it distills down to infusing coaching into the company’s DNA .

Peter Francis is president of Clinical Laboratory Sales Training, LLC, a unique training and development company dedicated to helping laboratories increase their revenues and reputation through prepared, professional and productive representatives. Mr. Francis is a proud member of the Washington G2 Advisory Board to which he has contributed several articles. He has also published articles in industry-related magazines such as Vantage Point, ADVANCE for Administrators of the Laboratory, ADVANCE for Laboratory Professionals and Medical Laboratory Observer. Visit the company’s web site at www.clinlabsales.com for a complete listing of services.