Useful Advices - Business

One of the most stressful moments for most sales people comes at the point when they have to decide whether or not to go around someone they have been dealing with to that point, be they client or prospect.

Some call it end run, backdoor, go over someone’s head, run around, what ever you call i

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

t, it’s never an easy decision, and certainly not always the right tactic; having said that it is more often the right choice than most sales people believe.

There are a number of factors in determining if and when to do an end run in order to win a deal. The value of the product/solution to th

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

e client organization; how pervasive is your solution in the client’s organization; how the client goes about purchasing both in terms of deciding and executing the purchase. And most notably, how good the rep is to begin with.

Assumably, top notch sellers will not get pigeon holed in a way tha

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

will force them to make that decision, but experience has shown that when they have to, they tend to go for it and usually win.

At the same time reps who sell solutions that rightly or wrongly have traditionally had lower perceived value or commoditized products/services such as packaging, off

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ice supplies, print services, copiers and office equipment, promotional items, industrial supply, and others, are the most reluctant to do an end run. These are the very reps that should be expanding their sales beyond their traditional buyers. The same reps who usually confuse users (the wholly

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

grail end user) with real decision makers, sadly too many settle for dealing the purchasing.

Consider this, in “32 percent of the situations a corporate buyer has no say in what they buy”; further “while it’s in only 32 percent of the situations in which they have no say, those situations cover

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

68 percent of the dollars spent. In other words, the bigger the ticket the stronger the probability that the buyer has no say in what they buy, so you must get to the decision maker for bigger ticket sales (and the sooner the better). " Lawrence L. Steinmetz, William T. Brooks: How to Sell a

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

Margins Higher Than Your Competitors: Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee

So if you are dealing with “end users” or purchasing (buyers), and are reluctant to move for fear of retaliation or loss of future business, you are doing yourself and your company great harm. If you view

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

these individuals as your clients and not their company, it will cost you. Yet we still hear a lot of reps tell us that they can't abandon their “champions”, “I can’t do that to my contact”. Bear in mind that today’s champion is tomorrow’s albatross.

It may be stating the obvious, but one way t

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

avoid the dilemma is to begin the whole process differently. By staying away from the wrong people at the start of the sale you will save a lot of sorrow and effort later in the process. If your solution has impact across the organization, you need to align with people who also have influence a

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

cross the organization. If you are selling a ten pound service, there is no point in talking to someone who can only carry a five pound bag. No point in trying to sell a six figure product to a five figure guy. Many managers have a timeframe of weeks, so if your product doesn’t fit that timefram

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

e, you heading to a point where you're going to have to do an end run.

And that’s alright, you have little to lose, and if you do it right, you’ll end up with much more powerful allies than the person you just went around. It all has to start right, as mentioned above, the company is your custo

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

er not the individual, individuals and their role are much more transient than entire companies. Sell to the company from the outset; tell your contact you appreciate the opportunity to talk to them, as you will with others in the company who will benefit from your solution. Ask them how they ha

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

ve made similar decisions in the past; why they have chosen to do it that way, and you’ll soon discover who else needs to be involved. Probe and validate their buying process and you’ll find a straight line to others you’ll need to engage. Then ask them to bring these people into the process, if

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

they turn you down, go it alone, their bark is worst then their bite.

Again at the risk of stating the obvious, you can always start at the top. It is true that not every decision requires an executive, but it doesn’t hurt. They know what’s going on and why; they can certainly give you the insi

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

ght you need to get to the project level decision maker; and your relationship with them can be the ultimate tie breaker. They certainly see the big picture more clearly than folks you’ll do an end run around. How many times did you stick with “your contact” only to find out that the decision wa

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

made by someone higher up the food chain?

To illustrate, take the example of an industrial supply (MRO) company that was continuously mired down with purchasing managers who spent their time squeezing pennies from their reps, always holding up quotes from competitors until price concessions we

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

re made (isn’t that sort of like a reverse end run?). They were finally encouraged to go around these managers and took their sale to the CFO’s and VP’s of finance. At that level the discussion went from pennies to big dollars; from incidental savings to major cost take out, not only in terms of

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

pricing, but the value add in the form of systems, inventory management, fulfillment, invoicing, allocation, etc. In other words they had the right message in the right language. The end result was bigger contracts, since CFO’s have influence across the whole company, and since the purchase mana

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

gers reported to someone who reports to the CFO, their role and influence was limited to implementation and facilitating the needs of the new value add strategic supplier.

So go ahead, liberate your stalled sales, and get past your obstacle. If you don’t you can bet someone else is, why not you

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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