Ever played the game “telephone”? You know how it goes — you give someone a message, and they pass it on down the line. Maybe they think they heard you clearly, but by the time the last person says it aloud, the message isn’t so clear anymore.
Isn’t that how it is to be a pharmacy sales rep? Your job is giving someone a message they can clearly repeat to someone else. Maybe you thought you had a good conversation with a doctor, but the results don’t turn out like you’d hoped.
Pharmacy sales is all about professional referrals. The customers are the patients. But the patients choose you because of their physicians. So your job is to maintain those professional relationships so the doctor remembers you when it’s time for a referral. And the best sales tracking apps will help you stay at the front of their minds.
The #1 Mistake: Being Forgettable
Your success depends on doctors remembering you and your product at the right time. Maybe you have a great conversation with a practice provider at a “Lunch and Learn” event. You tell them all about the advancements in your therapy, medication, or pharmacy, and they realize you’re a great match for their practice. But, if you never talk to them again and a referral opportunity doesn’t come up for months, they won’t remember you. Why? Keeping up with your information isn’t their main job. So you need to stay on their radar.
You want to be their first thought when the opportunity arises. So, for actively writing practices, visit every 30 days. For practices in your nurturing process (maybe they already use a compounding pharmacy or it doesn’t come up much), visit once a quarter. Meanwhile, keep in contact via email or messaging to develop your relationship and raise their awareness of your business.
Related: Looking For A Sales Lead Tracking App? Use This Checklist
Multiplying Your Efforts
What’s great about the rep-doctor relationship is that a referral partnership with one doctor usually means a relationship with many. Doctors tell their colleagues what works. So news spreads fast.
That means your return is exponential when you meet new clients. Establishing a relationship with one new doctor could lead to many more referrals. So don’t just visit your current clients. Make time to see new practices where you hope to gain referrals. Because a new relationship with one client may unlock the potential to work with many others.
Essential Tools for a Pharmacy Rep
Now, you need a way to keep track of it all. Here’s what you need:
- Reminders for maintaining relationships
- Opportunities to build more relationships
- A way to keep track of meetings in real time
- An easy mechanism for managing follow-ups
A sales app like CallProof gives you all those tools. First, you’ll get regular reminders to visit your clients (based on how frequently you need to see them). Then you’ll have access to a non-typing mechanism that shows you even more prospects. As you meet those prospects, you’ll be able to log their location and contact info with the push of a button on your phone. Plus, you can track your notes with a voice-to-text feature so you don’t even have to take the time to type it out. After that, you’ll just select your frequency for making contact. Then the app will remind you when it’s time to contact them again.
Related: 7 Must-Have iPhone Apps For Salespeople
But I’m Already Great at Finding New Prospects…
Many providers and practices are in medical complexes. So, when you stop by to see a regular client, you can visit other doctors nearby to develop new relationships. Ever realized the problems that can cause?
Without the right tracking mechanism, meeting unscheduled prospects costs you time. The first problem is forgetting to follow up. If you spend time beginning those relationships but do nothing with it, you’ve wasted time you could have spent more productively.
But maybe you mean to follow up, so you take their contact info, spend Friday afternoon entering them into your system so you can follow up — but you never do. Why? Following up is easy to put off. There’s almost always something better to do, so you rationalize your way out of it. Then you’ve wasted even more time. Making new contacts is great, but if you don’t do anything with the new leads, you’ve cost yourself time that doesn’t pay off.
Until you have an app to help you manage new contacts, you’re giving your competitors the advantage. They may not be out there getting cold leads, but they’re also not spending their time on fruitless activity.
Use Tools to Make Work Actionable
The key is getting a tool to make your work actionable. With a sales tracking app that tracks your contacts in real time (so you don’t have to take the time to enter them) and reminds you when to follow up (and won’t leave you alone until you do!), you’ll be miles ahead of the competition.
Rely on the best sales tracking apps for your business. You can’t rely on the individual diligence of your entire sales team. Not everyone is a top performer. Let technology do the work of logging contact info and reminding you who to contact. Then you can focus on building relationships, advocating for your pharmacy, and being the one physicians remember.
