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Part I of this series, published in theSeptember/October issue, discussed keyelements to create and sustain a high-performing sales force. Part II continues thediscussion with the challenges and pitfallsof ramping up for commercialization andmanaging expansion.

Q: What are the challenges to creatingor expanding a sales force duringramp up to commercialization?

Ginger Graham: Having launched twofirst-in-class products in the second quarterof 2005, we certainly wanted to be mindfulof several things. We had a small existingsales force and one of the many challengesof rapid expansion is to retain the quality.In periods of high growth, it is tempting towant to fill territories, when in fact, themore important challenge is retaining thequality and the consistency of your staff.

There’s also an element that is beyondquality that has to do with the culture of theenterprise. An important element in

healthcare is retaining the level of ethicsand integrity, professionalism, presence,and competence that your firm hasdetermined represents the enterpriseappropriately. If you’re not careful, you can end up with two cultures: The existingculture from reps who have been here andthe new culture from reps just joining theorganization. There is potentially a conflict,and if the values are not made consistentbetween the two groups, you can end upwith dysfunctional communications orrelationships in the organization.

You manage it by allowing your existingteam to participate in defining the needsand the requirements of the future, so that they co-own the success of the newemployees with the management team. I think this is often overlooked, and it’spresumed that the existing and new salesforces will seamlessly merge.

Craig Eberhard: We focused on two keyareas. One, what types of people do wewant to attract? Two, why should they leave

their present employer and work here?Naturally, everyone is looking for the same people in terms of competencies,experience, and performance. That said,what “geno-type” did we want to attract?What “face” did we want to introduce our new company and products. Salesmanagement, human resources, and ourcurrent field force spent time talking aboutwho we wanted on our team. We knew thetiming was right to attract people who weretired of working where the “shoes were justa little too tight.” People understand that“yesterday’s” pharma jobs no longer exist.That said, why do they have to work inmultiple sales force layers promoting thesame products? Why do they have to delivera presentation written 2,000 miles away? It works for many companies and people,but it doesn’t have to apply to everycompany or person. We wanted that person.In fact, we had more than 18,000 peopleapply for 350+ positions.

Ginger Graham: Often, growth isassociated with a number of stresses in the organization anyway. If you areexpanding, you have the normal challenges.People say, “Well, I don’t know anybodyanymore,” or “This is not who I came towork for.” “It doesn’t feel like it used toaround here,” or “The new guy is really not up to standard.” So you run the risk ofnot only reducing your overall quality, buteroding the soul and the commitment of theentire organization. The standards arebroad; they are about hiring people whobelieve, who want to sign up for the samemission, are willing to uphold the values of the organization, and are serious minded enough. You want them to know the history of the company and representthe organization appropriately. Part of

SalesPerformance

Lessons Learned from theBoardroom to the Street—Fireside Chat Series; Part IIBy: Jean Male, President & CEO, Emp-Higher Performance

Development, Inc.; Craig Eberhard, Vice President of Sales,Amylin; Ginger Graham, President & CEO, Amylin; and Matthew Witte, Vice President of Sales, Ligand

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their assignment is an obligation toaccurately carry forward the work that’sgone before them. That is not somethingthat you ascertain from a resume or a set of experiences.

Jean Male: Your use of “the soul andcommitment” is the humanistic aspect that great leaders nurture and protect,especially during expansion. Growth is such a precarious undertaking, and keeping a keen eye to the values that madethe company successful may be commonsense, but surely isn’t common practice. I’ve heard exactly as Ginger described from the mouths of employees whosecompanies literally changed out from under them. Expansion often calls for more systems and hierarchy to manage the larger organization. Without attention to the organizational values, this neededchange can stifle or even punish the small Specialty Pharma company’sentrepreneurial spirit that employees were initially drawn to, hired for, andmotivated by. The result: Employees whofind themselves miscast in their ownorganization. When this happens, they quit or worse, quit and stay. I see thisfrequently in performance consulting. In one case, a performance assessment of why a company’s previously highperformers were no longer selling had little to do with the territory realignment,systems, and contract changes originallysuspected. Although each was a potential

contributor to a sales shortfall, the realitywas that none of them prohibited the highperformers from meeting sales expectations.An oversimplification to the variables of performance analysis starts by asking, “If their lives depended upon it, could they do the job?” If the answer is, “No,”you probably have a resource or trainingissue. If the answer is, “Yes,” then it’s likely a performance issue. If so, what

are the causative factors? In this case, the performance analysis revealed that the previously high performers had become demoralized by the newlyautocratic culture. The Sales PerformanceJohari Window (Figure 1) gives us a look into what was, in essence, unknown.The company and sales force hadunwittingly, but literally changed the rules of engagement. The organization’sexpansion inadvertently changed the culture and the high performers whonormally would have endured the growingpains and gone the extra mile, becamedisillusioned and disengaged.

Q: What are the must-dos, and what pitfalls can you warn others to avoid?

Matthew Witte: It is critical to avoid the tendency for growing companies with multiple sales forces to devolve into sales “silos.” The company needs to break this cycle by bringing all fieldsales management together for routineplanning meetings and includeopportunities for group discussions around common challenges and bestpractices. An annual national POA

Figure 1

that includes the entire organization(including home office staff and seniormanagement) and creates opportunities for cross-divisional interaction can also be valuable.

Craig Eberhard: One of the “must dos” I think is to build properly balanced fieldforces between your sales, managed care,and medical affairs teams. To have a 500-person sales force and then a skeletonMC and/or Medical Affairs field teamdoesn’t create the balance you are going to need with the various customers in themarket place. In addition, it’s important tobuild these teams at the same time. Becausethe sales force is likely the largest in termsof the number of people to recruit and hire,it makes sense to begin to get yourmanaged care and med affairs teams onboard before the sales force. Pre-approvaleducation can begin with these field forcesbefore the actual product approval.

One additional comment: We all know a lot of people who are great at what they do, or in many cases, what they used to do(retired). Use them. They come up to speedquickly, appreciate the challenge, and haveone goal: To help you and your team besuccessful — quickly.

Matthew Witte: I don’t know if this is apitfall or not, but communicating clearcareer laddering in sales organizations thatmay have progressive primary care tospecialty sales teams is an area that salesmanagement needs to address. Salesrepresentatives need to have delineatedcareer pathways of progressive promotionalopportunities within their sales division aswell as opportunity to move and grow inother parts of the sales organization.

Jean Male: To Matt’s comments about field advancement, I would add anothercommon pitfall that seems magnified duringexpansion. I have always been shocked bythe short memory and relative disdain ofthose that move from field sales tocorporate marketing. There tends to be an immediate dismissal of reality to rely far more on market research. Indeed,market research is vital for validating orinvalidating field intelligence, identifyingnew opportunities, and much more.However, a healthy balance recognizes

that research is only as good as the design,instrument, researchers, and subjects, yet itis typically given far more weight thaninput from those who truly know thebusiness, are closest to the market andproduct, and have a vested interest insuccess. Perhaps we can do a better job ofteaching the field how to provide feedback,recommendations, and needs, but evenwhen delivered professionally, the feedbackis often heard as a cacophony of whinerscalled the Sales Force.

Ginger Graham: I get very irritated whenpeople look at the sales force as whinersbecause, in fact, one of the great tragediesin corporations is losing direct feedbackfrom the customer. The sales rep speaksbased on customer feedback. The managertones it down. The director packages it withsomething else. The vice president averagesit out across the country, and by the time itgets to the president, maybe what you get issome statement like, “Well, we have a fewissues in the south.” If the president hadtraveled with that rep, what she would haveheard was, “The company is totallydisrespected. The customers are leaving,and we’re our own worst enemy.” Instead,the president heard, “We have a few issuesin the south.” It’s a total disregard of not

only the fact, but the amplitude of thedelivery. I believe this is what actuallydistances corporations from their fieldorganizations and ultimately from theircustomers.

Craig Eberhard: Another caution is toavoid a mindset for wholesale reproductionof previous success because then all you’redoing is building mini-X company fromwherever you came from. Also, any timeyou’re doing something for the first timesomewhere else, it always takes longer. Soyou just have to increase your cycle timefor planning because it’s never a slam-dunkwhen you’re building something for the firsttime, even though you might have done itsomewhere else.

Jean Male: To both Matt and Craig’spoints, not only is it important to havecareer paths and resist the desire to copyand paste success in previous companies,but it’s vital to intentionally build your field “brand.” Generic surveys of what top sales performers do, and tying thosebehaviors to a performance system, cannotadequately address the variables of highperformance in any given company.Generic behaviors miss the opportunity tomaximize revenue while moving employees

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along a development continuum. There istremendous utility and mutual benefit tocreating tiered performance standards thatdescribe the expected behaviors to movefrom new hire to veteran representative andso on. Once identified, you know what youneed to hire, train, measure, and reward.Measurable success factors and milestonesby job and tenure not only map success but articulate clear expectations for what isneeded to execute the marketing and salesplans as well as for advancement to salesor marketing management roles.

Matthew Witte: For closer communicationand mutual respect with field sales forces,the proper use of sales advisory groups can help to channel important feedback into all areas of commercial operations. To make this work effectively, they need tobe supported by senior management toassure active participation by all relevantdepartments. Representatives also need toshow commitment to the process as well.Rotating memberships, routine elections,representative-designed by-laws, etc. aretechniques that help facilitate participationand buy-in. Ultimately, management has to actively listen to the issues, react toaddress the issues they can, and tell salesrepresentatives “no” when appropriate.

Q: What other precautions or pitfalls would you add?

Ginger Graham: Only organizations thatactually hear not just the content, but the emotion behind the content from thesales force and respond to it; only thosecompanies will actually be responsive and clearly connected to their customer,even when they disagree with theircustomer. I think it takes courage to listen to the feedback and still execute your strategy. If you bury the feedback, you never have a metric for your strategyuntil it’s too late.

Jean Male: I can’t amplify or underscorewhat you are saying enough. So manycreate an organization where they either“shoot the messenger” or encourage the “Emperor’s New Clothes” feedback.When management models avoid or punishnegative feedback, they begin to create atoxic environment. Moreover, the culture

reinforces sales representatives’ inherenttendency to not want to hear or evensquelch customers’ objections; a criticalsales incident responsible for significantlost opportunity costs. Contemporarycompanies welcome the good, the bad, and the ugly as fodder for healthy discourseand troubleshooting whether talking withmanagement or customers.

Matthew Witte: Customer-focusedorganizations include everyone in sellingopportunities from the CEO, CFO,technical operations, clinical, productresearch and development, medical affairsand senior sales management. Theseopportunities may or may not include the typical physician-representative salescall, but go a long way to create mutualunderstanding and respect for each person’s professional perspective. Typicalopportunities to “blend” sales teamsinclude managed care, supply channel,trade show, and KOL/institution salespresentations.

Ginger Graham: The sales force needs to see leadership speak, and own the truth, even if they can’t change it. It’sliberating for the sales force to see thatmanagement understands their challengesand what their life is like. I’ve never known a sales force that wanted everythingfixed for them, but they all want people to appreciate and understand them. Noglossy, four-color brochures, please. Only the truth. It’s the most powerful thing management has in managing thesales force.

Jean Male: Honest, open, two-waycommunication, management discretion,values preservation, and creating a support system for performance successyields trust, builds mutual respect, and is increasingly demanded by today’s high-performing specialty reps. Delivering on this promise to fieldrepresentatives increases the ability to attract, leverage, and retain the highest performing sales talent and is key to delivering the ROI demanded by investors and stockholders. �

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Ms. Jean Male’s more than 20 years in

biopharmaceutical sales, management,

marketing, business development, and

training brings unparalleled first-person

understanding of the business drivers and

needs of all stakeholders for creating sales

performance. Since 1989, as a specialty

biopharma Sales Training Director, Ms. Male’s

initial sales performance initiatives were

widely acknowledged for the company’s

achievement of revenue projections for the

first time in its history. She quickly became a

worldwide consultant whose protocols and

programs became the international benchmark

for over 30 affiliate countries. For nearly a

decade, as President & CEO of Emp-Higher,

she has been helping other companies

mirror and exceed those results through

performance consulting and measurement,

keynote speaking, and training. To date, the

company has developed a content powerhouse

of more than 30 sales performance-based

training programs, including Territory CEOTM

sales performance certification. Ms. Male’s

expertise is acknowledged by more than 20

interviews and published articles in global

sales and industry journals, including

Specialty Pharma, Pharmaceutical Executive,

Selling Power Magazine, Pharmaceutical

Representative, PharmaVoice, Selling Power

Online, MedAd News, and others. Ms. Male is a

past President of the Society of Pharmaceutical

and Biotech Trainers (SPBT), and serves on

the Board of the Healthcare Women’s

Association (HBA). She may be reached at

(856)-787-1107 or www.emphigher.com.

JEAN MALEPresident & CEO,Emp-HigherPerformance