Useful Advices - Business

Cold Calling is dead. That’s right, it is dead. It is interruption marketing to the highest degree. Consumers are tuning out interruption marketing and the advertising message is not getting through.

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

So why do you continue to cold call? It is probably because your sales manager tells you that you should. And why does he tell you to cold call? It is probably because the sales consultant that your co

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

Examples of combination products may in

mpany spent thousands of dollars on advised that the staff should increase their cold calls to increase their sales. Of course, your company needs to see a return on this investment so they advise the

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

sales manager to advise the sales staff to follow the recommendations and increase the amount of cold calls.

“More cold calls equals more appointments made equals more sales presentations equals more

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

closed sales.” This is the general thinking. So sales leads lists are purchased from companies such as InfoUsa and the troops hunker down in the “boiler room” and call business executives and decision

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

Combination pro

makers hoping to set appointments. The generally accepted rule is 15 cold calls should translate into 3 appointments made which should result in 1 completed sale. This rule usually ends up being 150 (o

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

r more) cold calls equals 3 appointments made equals 1 completed sale. The reason? Have you ever tried calling a business executive? Then you know that it takes about 10 tries before you actually get t

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

hrough on the phone. So the intial 15 calls turns into 150 calls. Executives, by nature, are busy… appointments, meetings, travel, planning… they don’t have time for unsolicited phone calls. And, if yo

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

u do manage to find them with some free time, it takes a lot of skill to get through the secretary (the gatekeeper); they are trained to filter out unimportant phone calls. And guess what? Your call is

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

NOT IMPORTANT!

Let’s go back to the sales consultant that your company hired. How did your company decide that they needed to hire a sales consultant? Did the sales consultant cold call your company

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

o advise that your company’s sales are not as high as they could be and that, therefore, they should hire a sales consultant to provide some recommendations? No he didn’t. The scenario was something al

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

Following aspects would a

ong the following lines: The CEO of your company noticed that sales are decreasing and did a search on the internet for a sales consultant to potentially hire to help the company increase sales. The CE

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

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

O called the consultant, they met, the consultant made his sales presentation, and he was hired. The sales consultant, already with a contract, just regurgitated old school sales principals, basically

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

more cold calls. Perhaps he even drafted a few cold calling scripts. This is almost foolproof. If sales increase the consultant will say it was because of his cold calling training. If sales don’t incr

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

ease he’ll say it is because the company wasn’t following his recommendations… they did not make enough cold calls.

The bottom line is this “sales expert” did not need to make a cold call to earn his

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

income. The company CEO found him on the internet. He has a website and he lets his website do the selling for him. If the “sales expert” doesn’t need to make cold calls, then neither do you. Rather th

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

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

an spending thousands of dollars on sales consultants and sales lead lists, sell the way that these pros sell. Instead, spend that money on internet marketing. People that need your services are search

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

ing the internet to find somebody to provide it to them. If they are not finding you then your competitors are getting the business. If you don’t have a website, you can create a professional profile o

.

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

n other sites, such as trade-pals.com for free. Just remember, if you disturb somebody with a sales message it is interruption marketing. If someone finds you through searches it is permission marketin

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

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

g. People just don’t respond to interruption marketing anymore. If they find you, they have already made the conscious decision to use your services; half of your sales work will already have been done

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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Just to accept responsibilities is not enough to gain career success. Those who reach out aggressively to grab all the responsibilities they can are handle are the ones who take home the gold.

Much of the literature and advice on implementing business change focuses on knowing where you are going and making sure that you understand and communicate a consistent vision of the future. Indeed, I have looked at the importance of this in an earlier article in this series. This article, however, looks at the past and its often under-estimated importance in implementing change.

When reps have the power to act arbitrarily, service suffers, says Dr. Gary S. Goodman, top speaker, and best-selling author of 12 books including, MONITORING, MEASURING & MANAGING CUSTOMER SERVICE. (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley)

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Useful Advices - Cold Calling: Just DON'T Do It

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