SALES FM aka Meticulous Call Planning = Consistent Sales Performance

A few days back I was addressing my group of Alumni students and majority of them are in Sales and Marketing functions of Pharmaceutical industry/Medical devices.

During the discussion a very common and frequently occurring problem surfaced was of CONSISTENCY – a CONSISTENT SALES PERFORMANCE.

Since the majority of them are working as Product Managers or Regional Managers in their respective pharmaceutical organizations and are having 3-5 yrs. of field experience too, I asked them what do you think is the real cause – what are the reasons inconsistency?

The following is the brief summary of inventory of Responses:

1.Lack of attitude

2.Poor customer knowledge

3. Poor product knowledge

4.Doctors not giving time to detailing

5.Tough competition

6.Big targets

7.Fewer resources etc. etc.

When I asked :

• What VALUE ADDITION you have done in the fieldwork?
• What have you ANALYSED?
• What prescription you have given for the CONSISTENT sales performance,

the answers were highly irrational and clearly showed the disconnect between them and fieldwork analysis. And this I am pretty sure, the same is the state of affair of other FLMs /RBMs too.

When I asked how many of you have seriously analyzed the Doctor’s CALL PLANNING of your field professionals, what input you have given in the CALL PLANNING and its sequencing, trust hardly any people raised their hands and their answers were too VAGUE and beyond the realm.

I asserted, that, in my opinion (I may be wrong!) you should try the following MANTRA (a mantra given to us by our then SmithKline Beecham ZSM Mr.K.L.Kapoor)

Have a great Monday: Have a great Friday

( to my students I say -Tunein SalesFM for Consistent sales Performance)

1. Make your first day of the week Monday as the most productive day-try to call upon your biggest sales account (it may be a doctor or a big institution)

2. Listen to some good motivation sales talk on Monday morning (it may be any as per your own choice, trust me mental weightlifting helps a lot)

3. On Monday you should have reasonably good appointment calls and that too 70% of the Doctors should be of repute -as it will set the tone for your entire week of sales productivity ( FLMs- pl note – it will make your monitoring, follow-up, and supervision very easy as you will ask only reasonable and justified questions.

4. Work like hell all week.

5. On Friday again listen to some motivational talks preferably by some good sales leaders.

6. Friday /Saturday-again try to close the sales with a big account (or a Doctor)

7. Now the most important mantra: On the last closing day of the week -solidify your Monday appointments of Friday itself….it is a must. The total number of appointments for Monday morning should be as per the business priority, but in my opinion, it should not be less than FIVE.

8. Keep your Pipeline loaded, having the desired customers calls in the Weekend list with a prior appointment will set the tone for Monday, and you will be fully charged and motivated to bounce back on Monday.

So, how do you set the tone for the first day of the week i.e. Monday, will set the tone for the rest of the week. And how we do the work on Monday is based upon how smartly we worked on the last week. (after in cricket too, a good opening partnership for the team has lead to the victory -isn’t it ?)

Trust me friends, the magic of Friday-Monday(FM) works , so tune in to SALES FM for consistent sales performance.

Make Monday as a Springboard.

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