5 Best Practices for Engaging Medical Field Sales Teams

In any organization, employee engagement can be a game-changer. This is especially true for sales departments, where engaged sales teams have a higher sales engagement (interactions with prospects) rate—commonly-cited research notes that “highly engaged teams are 21% more productive” (Source: engagedly.com). Basically, engaged sales representatives will work harder and go the extra mile to meet (or beat) their goals.

Meanwhile, disengaged employees may simply go through the motions and put in the bare minimum effort required to get through the day (and actively disengaged employees may sabotage their employer’s efforts on purpose). Medical sales reps and pharma sales reps who either don’t care or are frustrated with their work won’t have a high sales engagement rate—leading to fewer interactions and reduced results.

Additionally, disengaged sales reps are more likely to leave for another company and force you to recruit, hire, and train a replacement (a process that takes valuable time and money).
So, what can you do to help your field sales team be more engaged with their work? What are the top challenges in managing a field sales team?

So, what can you do to help your field sales team be more engaged with their work? What are the top challenges in managing a field sales team?

The Top Challenges of Engaging Medical Field Sales Teams

The trouble for many companies in the healthcare industry is that the majority of their employees are disengaged with their work. A Gallup survey of employee engagement released in July of 2020 showcased that employee engagement in the U.S. dipped severely in June—falling from a record high of 38% of employees being engaged to 31%. Gallup stated that this was “the most significant drop we have recorded in our history of tracking employee engagement in the U.S., dating back to 2000.”

When healthcare and pharmaceutical field sales teams are disengaged from their work, sales results suffer.

Understanding the biggest obstacles to employee engagement for medical field sales teams is the first step in improving engagement. Some of the biggest challenges of engaging a field sales team include:

• Isolation: Lack of Connection with the Team or Leadership. One of the primary challenges with keeping field sales representatives engaged with their work, especially now, is that they so often work remotely from their homes. A lack of frequent face time can leave them feeling isolated or disconnected from their fellow team members. It can also make it easier for disengaged sales team members to be distracted.
• Silos: Getting Blamed after the Handoff. Field sales team members aren’t always aware of the latest changes to the way other teams in the organization operate—especially if ongoing medical sales rep training is lacking. Additionally, they have no control over how customer service team members handle their prospects after the handoff. Yet, when a problem arises with a product, policy, or service, it is often the sales rep who gets the blame. This can lead to frustration and disengagement with work.
• Job Insecurity: Fear of the Pink Slip. One of the leadership behaviors that often leads to disengagement among employees is the consistent use of layoff threats as a motivation tactic. As noted in a BBC Worklife article, “in small doses, feelings of job uncertainty may give workers extra incentive to perform in the short term,” but “Job insecurity [is] related to lower levels of in-role performance, lower levels of innovative work behaviour, higher levels of the enactment of workplace bullying behaviours and actual turnover.” Prolonged exposure to the stress created by job insecurity can be emotionally draining—driving disengagement and employee turnover as they seek more stable employment.
• Overwork: Problems with Work-Life Balance. Aggressive performance and process goals can be a good thing for ensuring that field sales teams work hard and drive results. However, the goals set need to take into account the reality that sales reps face and the amount of time they have to achieve those goals. If sales team members find it impossible to meet goals without having to dedicate seemingly every waking moment to selling, they may give up and reevaluate the value of attempting to achieve those goals.
• Lack of Training/Communication: Things Changing without Their Knowledge. As regulations governing your company’s products or services change, field sales teams may need to adjust their sales strategy to account for those changes. When important updates aren’t communicated to the field sales team, they may make mistakes in the sales process that lead to problems further down the line—problems that can lead to angry clientele. This, in turn, can lead to the sales rep facing complaints and drive disengagement.

Considering the above, how can you better manage your sales team’s engagement with their work?

Here are a few tips on how to manage a field sales team to help you drive results:

5 Best Practices for Engaging Your Medical Field Sales Team

1. Use Workplace Communication Tools to Simulate Face-to-Face Time

To resolve the issue of field sales team members not feeling connected with their team members or with leadership, it can help to use a communication tool or app. Apps like Slack, Zoom, Google Meets, and Microsoft Teams make it easier for employees to communicate with one another remotely and even simulate face-to-face time with video calls.

Slack and Microsoft Teams allow for text-based chat between individuals and whole teams, which helps sales team members (and their leaders) shoot short messages back and forth to everyone who needs them. This helps to make field sales reps feel more like a part of the team and simplify the communication of major updates or changes to the company’s policies.

Videoconferencing solutions like Zoom and Google Meets can help employees simulate that “face-to-face” time with the rest of their team to increase camaraderie and boost engagement. They can also use these solutions with prospects to improve sales engagement as well.

2. Make Time to Provide Sales Reps with Individual Attention

Sales reps have a variety of personal goals and wants that they need fulfilled in order to feel motivated and engaged with their work. Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” strategy for meeting these needs. Employee engagement strategies that work with one person may not work so well with others.

However, there are ways to identify your field sales team members’ needs. Some companies use high-tech solutions to survey their sales team members and identify their core needs—but that isn’t strictly necessary. Here’s a quote from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) on the subject: “Absent a personality assessment, there is a simple, low-tech, no-cost approach that managers can use to find out what each of their employees wants: Ask them.”

Setting aside some time to give sales reps some individual attention can be crucial for identifying their needs. Additionally, by giving employees this one-on-one meeting time and asking about their wants or needs, you can make them feel more connected and like they’re cared about—which can help to boost their engagement with their work.

3. Periodically Review Sales Goals and Performance for All Field Sales Team Members

Aggressive goals can be an important tool for motivating employees, but it’s important that those goals be achievable. Periodically reviewing sales goals and measuring them against past benchmarks can be critical for differentiating an aggressive (but achievable) goal from one that places unrealistic expectations on the sales team’s collective shoulders.

Additionally, it’s important to consider whether there have been any major changes to the sales process that might make it easier or more difficult to hit certain goals. For example, if new software was added that makes it take less time for the field sales team to complete a quote, it might be reasonable to increase the goal for the number of sales quotes made per week or month. On the other hand, if there are new requirements to consider that make the process take longer, it may be necessary to lower that goal instead.

4. Make Medical Sales Rep Training a Regular Event

Keeping sales team members informed of important product/service updates, changes in the regulations governing how they sell medical goods and services, or new company policies that may affect the sales process is crucial. Holding regular employee training events can help to communicate important updates and prevent potential miscommunications with prospects that negatively impact their customer experience.

It can also help them brush up on critical sales skills that improve their overall performance.

5. Celebrate Sales Team Wins

Did the field sales team close a major deal with a big hospital or other healthcare organization? Celebrate that win with them!

Highlighting examples of sales reps who managed a big achievement or milestone can help drive engagement in a couple of ways:

1. The employee being recognized will feel like their hard work is being rewarded—motivating them to try to repeat the feat in the future.
2. Other employees will see that achievement can earn them recognition—motivating them to try to outdo the award-winner.

When recognizing achievements by a member of the sales team, it can help to make that recognition public. Make a big announcement at the next team meeting, host a special party, make a little placard/award/trophy they can put on their desk or home office wall, and show off to everyone. Basically, do something to create some fanfare and make sure people know that one of their coworkers did something extraordinary and was rewarded/recognized for it.

What Can I Do if I Can’t Scale and Manage My Sales Team?

Another challenge that many companies in the healthcare industry face is the issue of scaling their sales teams. At some point, the company’s sales team grows too large for any one person to manage (or the field sales team members are simply too disparate to manage easily), and the company’s needs keep growing regardless.

This is where a contract sales organization (CSO) can help. CSOs can provide outsourced sales management services and access to a wide pool of talent through their contract sales team.

What Is a Contract Sales Team?

A contract sales team is a group of sales representatives who sell your service or product that aren’t a part of your company’s organizational chart. Instead, these external contract sales development experts are recruited, managed, trained, and reimbursed by a third party—the CSO you’re partnered with.

Your CSO can handle the key aspects of outsourced sales management so you are free to focus on more value-added tasks. Additionally, because the CSO does everything from hiring to training, you don’t have to worry about expenses for recruiting and training new employees to replace ones that leave.

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We have SERVED our client’s customers by:

• Keeping in communication with them to see how everyone in their office is faring given the circumstances;
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Are you ready for a low-stress solution for your sales needs? Reach out to Axxelus today to get started!