5 Best Practices for Sales Success in Today's Healthcare Market

Changes in healthcare policies are having a profound impact on how healthcare products, services, and solutions are being bought. Reimbursements to healthcare providers are increasing based on the value or outcome of their care rather than the volume of care. This leads them to favor treatments that either decrease costs, improve patient outcomes, or both. Increasingly, therapeutic decisions to meet these criteria are based on evidence from well-designed and conducted research.

As these changes cascade, life sciences companies must also change how they engage with healthcare buyers in order to drive business results.

Best Practices for Life Sciences Sales Professionals

Below are five best practices to help life sciences salespeople achieve greater success in this new era of evidence-based medicine:

1. Adopt a Solution-Centric Sales Approach

   Solution-centric discussions require new skills, such as discovery, collaboration, and solution development. These skills help sales reps better understand the healthcare provider’s (HCP’s) practice and patient population so that they can deliver a solution that creates value.

2. Develop Strategic Account Management Discipline

   To better align with the needs of today’s healthcare market, sales reps must focus on solving critical practice issues that impact not just individual HCP accounts but the entire organization.

3. Develop Your Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Skills and Vocabulary

   Research shows that Evidence-Based Medicine holds the strongest customer buying influence, and over 90 percent of physicians want reps to make more use of clinical studies and EBM in their conversations.

4. Speak Both Clinical and Business Language Fluently

   Representatives must not only have the ability to speak the language of evidence-based medicine that physicians are expecting, but they must also have the skill to address the objectives and concerns of key business stakeholders.

5. Advocate for Your Customer

   Healthcare organizations and individuals expect sales reps to provide information that will help them solve critical business/practice issues. Sales reps may not always know all the answers, but they must be able to rally the right expertise and resources.