{"id":5305,"date":"2020-05-18T15:33:01","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T06:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wordpress\/?p=5305"},"modified":"2020-05-18T15:33:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T06:33:04","slug":"20200518","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/en\/news\/20200518\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Japan Sales Team Ready to Run in the Rain?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Even before the Covid 19 outbreak, the mood in many Japan pharma sales teams was turning dark. A palpable sense of unease and ambiguity \u2014 \u201cmoya moya kan\u201d in the local vernacular \u2014 was steadily affecting motivation, commitment, and engagement levels in the ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list of why\u2019s is long:
– ongoing criticism of pharma overspend on sales efforts vs. R&D
– newly aggressive MHLW drug re-pricing & cost controls
– increasing adoption of facility and regional formularies
– expansion of hospital restrictions on MR visits
– and from last autumn, newly restrictive MR compliance guidelines<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to those rumblings the uncertainty around the current pandemic, and the outlook for \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d is very poor indeed. My weather forecast anticipates that it will be wet, cold and miserable for MR\u2019s through the summer, with in-person visits largely restricted through the o-bon holidays in August at a minimum. And as doctors begin to adjust to those new conditions, it will be increasingly difficult for pharma to revert to the sunny old model we once enjoyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the new reality for the Japan pharmaceutical industry!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So for us the key question is \u2014 how can we reset our existing teams for confidence and success in this new environment? My answer is VR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not that VR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not talking about virtual reality. I am talking about re-defining sales teams in Japan. The actual translation of \u201cMR\u201d in Japanese is \u201ciyaku-joho tanto-sha\u201d or \u201cpharmaceutical information provider,\u201d but this job description is clearly outdated. I suggest we move to a new nomenclature \u2014 the VR or \u201cValue Representative\u201d. VR\u2019s concentrate their energy first and foremost on adding value to physicians, patients, and other healthcare system stakeholders. As a result of their efforts, better care decisions are made, drugs are used appropriately, and their companies make money that can be used to further develop innovative treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are things we talk about now. But how do we actually get there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spare me the details<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For starters, let\u2019s kill the word \u201cdetail\u201d. Product characteristics are important, clinical evidence is important, of course, of course. But if a rep\u2019s mindset is \u201cto detail\u201d a physician, he or she might as well not bother \u2014 most of these one-way calls simply waste the physician\u2019s time, and in the end will do more harm than good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not all the reps\u2019 fault. If we want reps to sell like the blockbuster decade of the early 2000\u2019s, we should continue to use the same KPI\u2019s, the same targeting matrixes, and the same SOV-focused tools the current sales leadership grew up on when they were reps: X# calls per target per month, X% coverage, X# new scripts in Q3, #% market share\u2026 Oh look, that\u2019s right where we are now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t worry that the products have changed, the value proposition has changed, the physician expectation has changed, the world has changed. Sure, it worked back then. And to a certain extent, it still works \u2014 at least it did until February 2020. But it decidedly won\u2019t work for anyone in the same way moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The doctors don\u2019t want it. The reps don\u2019t want to do it. And you shouldn\u2019t make them. Especially post-Covid 19. Bringing a rep into a clinical environment to spout product information is NOT putting patients first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how to mold a Value Representative team?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Japanese reps are exceedingly diligent, professional, and knowledgeable about clinical evidence, guidelines, and other technical matters. But let\u2019s face it, the sunny and happy SOV environment they lived in until recently did not challenge them to truly focus on exploring needs and responding appropriately to their physicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most obvious starting point is to have VR\u2019s ask questions. But not just any questions. I mean great questions. Outstanding, provocative, insightful questions that reflect a deep desire to serve doctors and their patients. Questions that drive conversations forward, spark motivation and eventually enable behavior change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can they learn to do that? Sure it is a cliche, but the main thing is to stop selling. We need to encourage them to focus on desired clinical and behavioral outcomes, not Rx counts (that will come later). This mindset is hard to maintain while being inundated with activity-based KPI\u2019s around call counts and message delivery (see above). It sounds corny, but let\u2019s help reps reflect back on why they chose to join the pharma business, what is important to them, and how they can truly help \u2014 especially in this environment \u2014 by serving their physicians with true integrity in each and every interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a skill standpoint, VR\u2019s should think in terms of \u201cconversations\u201d (again not \u201cdetails\u201d). Companies should provide reps a robust framework that guides them through the right steps needed to draw physicians out, fully understand the situation, identify a relevant, emergent need, and then eventually tie that back to their product or solution only when and if it makes sense. A sales culture built and coached around such a process will help every rep do better in every physician call they make. Whether in-person or virtual, no matter how hard the winds are blowing outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does your team ask questions? Pretty much everyone does, of course. But are they good questions? Great questions? Outstanding, provocative, \u201cnow-that-you-ask-it-makes-me-reconsider-what-I-was-doing-up-until-now\u201d kind of questions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If not, your teams are still not true VR\u2019s. And they are not going to do well in the rainy days to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before the Covid 19 outbreak, the mood in many Japan pharma sales teams was turning dark. A palpable sense of unease and ambiguity \u2014 \u201cmoya moya kan\u201d in the local vernacular \u2014 was steadily affecting motivation, commitment, and engagement levels in the ranks. The list of why\u2019s is long:– ongoing criticism of pharma overspend on sales efforts vs. R&D– … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_locale":"en_US","_original_post":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wordpress\/?p=5294"},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3rockconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}