Proper incentivisation is critical to the effectiveness of an organisation’s sales force. However, the methods of incentivisation are often misinterpreted, poorly devised or glossed over, ultimately leading to low levels of efficiency and morale, poorly motivated individuals and lacklustre results. The pharmaceutical company may be a leader in its field, be very creative and with cutting-edge solutions, but the organisation will only be truly effective if its sales and marketing team is well prepared and trained. Such a team must be comprehensive, well balanced, able to employ different strategies and techniques and perform to a high-level of efficiency within a tough commercial field. The sales team must be well established and managed and pharmaceutical consultants have the experience, knowledge and background to enable this objective.

The achievement of the sale is not the end of the story. While winning a sale is undoubtedly important, as after all without sales nothing is achieved, there must be tangible and measurable value attached to the sale, from every point of view. However efficient the executive, without the creation of a good relationship between both parties, the long-term baseline value of the transaction is questionable. As such, it is important that the company applies incentives very carefully and selectively, so that a “win-win” situation is always achieved.

Productivity generally increases if an individual is incentivised, as this is within our nature. Create sensible goals to move the sales force forward. Correct incentivisation will enhance the effectiveness of the sales force, but the opposite is also true. Rather than setting a goal, the incentive path should be a journey with multiple tiers and an endpoint that is always just out of reach. This will ensure that the sales executive is constantly engaged.

In most cases, pharmaceutical consulting firms tell us that sales executives spend the majority of their time on ancillary and sometimes mundane administrative work and a minority of their time in direct communication with prospects or engaged with client management. Due to this amazing statistic, time management should be a top priority and executives should do whatever they can to cut down on the ancillary or administrative work necessary. Indeed, if these boring tasks get completely out of control, certain personality types can rebel and this can have a serious, knock-on effect on creativity and achievements.

If a comprehensive training program is practised by the organisation, each team member will get the feeling that he or she is dynamically engaged with the overall goal. While administrative burdens should be kept to a minimum as we have said, training must nevertheless be prioritised. Generally, pharma consulting firms can help to roll out the latest in procedures, educate in technical issues and methodology and focus on product awareness. Such companies have been proven to raise morale, cut out negative emotions, inject just the right amount of enthusiasm and draw on their extensive industry background.

Alan Gillies is the CEO of L2L Consulting, a cutting-edge pharma consultancy firm which specialises in optimising productivity and performance within international companies by applying tailored organisational strategies.