Pharmaceutical Sales Rep Breakthrough Series... Part Four

Many times in the selling process we are so focused on what we need to accomplish that we forget about the wants and needs of our customer, the doctor. As our time with the doctor has diminished in the past few years to about 80 seconds per call we tend to focus even more acutely on our agenda rather than what our customer needs from us. During this article, I would like to concentrate on five things you need to know about your physician customer. This is article four of five in the series.

#4: Doctors are Taught to
Communicate in a Certain Way

Every medical professional has been taught a standard way of communicating medical information. It is called SOAP. Doctors use this process to document clinical information, present patient cases and clinical papers and communicate patient information. Let me give you an example.

If you have ever watched any of the medical shows on television such as Grey's Anatomy... this may sound familiar. You have probably seen an EMT Team handing a patient off to an ER Team and heard a conversation such as this.

"I have an adult whit male approximately 46 years of age, BP is 130 over 90, pulse is 82, we suspect possible MI, recommend 10 mg of Epi." The S stands for Subjective. The subjective information is an adult white male approximately 46 years of age. The O stands for Objective. The Objective information comes from the data they gathered during their work up; BP 130 over 90, pulse 82. The A stands for Assessment and is the medical team's diagnosis; possible myocardial infarction. Finally the P stands for Plan.

In this case the recommended treatment Plan is an injection of 10 mg of epinephrine. Every clinical study is set up this way. The subjective sets up the problem the study is addressing. The objective gives the vital information about the study such as author, journal, date and number of patients in the study.

The Assessment reports the results of the study. And the plan gives the author's recommendations.

Two very practical ways to use this healthcare communication tool is to present your product and clinical study information in this format. When presenting your product information set up a problem your product can solve, solve that problem using your products features and benefits, probe to enter into a dialogue with the doctor and close for the doctor to use your product for those patients experiencing that particular problem.

When using this format to present a clinical study set up the problem, provide the study information (author, journal, date and study data) report the results and the author's recommendations. By using this universal language when speaking to all healthcare professionals you will gain credibility and be able to present information in a clear, concise manner.

I have trained many people to present a clinical study in 30 seconds using this format. If you were a bilingual sales representative you would never present to a Spanish speaking doctor in English.

Now that you understand the doctor's language, stop speaking your native tongue of sales and begin to speak their language and watch their prescribing behavior change!