The Sales Training and Development team at Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. (OAPI) developed the EDGE Advanced Sales Training program to improve patient and practice-centered selling as a competency for its account managers (AMs). The primary objective of the EDGE program is to educate AMs on the importance of connecting with the customer’s “agenda,” as opposed to simply presenting information on the AM’s agenda.
Program Details
EDGE training engages learners in a team-based activity simulation involving the complexities of managing a physician’s practice or hospital. The primary objective of this game-based exercise is to more completely understand the various clinical and business considerations facing health-care practitioners, especially practice/institutional goals and factors that facilitate or hinder goal achievement.
Additional team-based simulations and reflective activities focus on essential skills required to better understand a customer’s agenda, creating a cohesive strategic and tactical sales plan that includes the integration of marketplace and practice/institution-based knowledge and engaging customers in discussions that help them appropriately align the value of an OAPI product offering with customers’ practice goals.
All aspects include continuous observation from first-line managers and competency alignment for development purposes.
Results
OAPI undertook a formal success case analysis to evaluate the impact of EDGE Advanced Sales Training on sales performance with 79 participants. This process included surveying and interviewing participants. Participants self-reported increases in script volume and in access to non-prescribers and partnerships/professional relationships created with prescribers with different levels of prescribing history. Narratives from the surveys included participants reporting having more meaningful discussions, generating more business questions from physicians, and increasing access by allowing representatives to conduct educational programs with the staff. Impact Maps also were created, measuring key skills and knowledge, critical job behaviors, key job results, OAPI sales strategic imperatives, and OAPI corporate strategic imperatives.
Behavioral changes were seen in participants, with nearly 87 percent taking new/different sales actions based on EDGE learning. This also was seen in the role of the manager, with 85 percent of the program participants receiving extensive or some level of coaching on the program objectives.
Success was particularly evident with the hospital sales force. Quantitative sales data included unit sales increasing 50 to 60 percent, with this account now having the highest unit volume hospital. Also in this account, the product has expanded formulary and been added to protocols where the product unit volume has doubled. One physician has increased usage to putting one patient a week on the product, bringing the unit volume up to more than 50 percent. Yet another hospital did not use the product previously and now is using it and generating $100,000 in revenue every six months.
2014 Metrics: Success Case Method
- 400 new particpants
- 42.9 percent indicated that they changed sales behaviors as a result of the course to help achieve a sales outcome.
- 36.1 percent saw a change in behavior but had not seen a sales outcome.
- 54 percent met with the manager prior to the training and developed an Impact Map, which then was revisited.
- 55 percent received some follow-up or coaching.
