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IntroductionThis fireside chat series, Creating Sales

Performance — Lessons Learned from theBoardroom to the Street, addresses a pivotaltopic in one of the fastest-growing sectorsin healthcare investing. There is much adoabout acquiring the right compound andminimizing risk to hedge the gamble forsolid returns. A favorite Peter Druckerquote states, “The best way to predict thefuture is to create it.” But investmentanalyses often miss opportunities to exceedmarket potential with sales-performanceinitiatives. From inception, they can createclear differentiation and competitive edge to outmaneuver other companies in atherapeutic category, whether Big Pharmaor other Specialty Pharma companies.

Participants in this discussion wereencouraged to share all they have learnedfrom the early days — on the Street throughtheir progression to boardroom and howthat insight creates performance on theStreet. This discussion will encompass the

Specialty Pharma definition shared byfellow Specialty Pharma Council member,Vik Seoni: “Specialty pharma is looselydefined as the expanse between Big Pharmaand Biotech.” The focus for this series,then, is creating sales performance withinthat dynamic array of business models.

Q: What do you see as the keyelements needed to create and sustaina high- performance sales force?

Ginger Graham: The requirements aresometimes different, though the motivatingforces include a common set of elements. It includes the understanding of a purpose,and a strong purpose, which people aredrawn toward, even compelled to execute,something that they believe in; clarity of themeasurement off of which performance isdetermined, and then a broad set of toolsthat management employs for recognitionand reward. I believe any sales force,regardless of the requirements from theircustomer, if they believe in the purpose,

understand how they’ll be measured, andare appreciated, rewarded, and recognizedin a broad manner, over time, that they canachieve exceptional results.

Craig Eberhard: A clear vision andcorresponding objectives to achieve thatvision. Our people believe that we’refundamentally going to change the waydiabetes is treated not only in the US, buteventually throughout the world. So it’s partof people wanting to be a part of somethingthat’s bigger than themselves, and I thinkthat’s one of the things that’s helped rallypeople here.

Jean Male: The values are highly relevantand often overlooked, but are a principalfor hiring, motivation, retention, andgrowth. Values drive behaviors. Mostcompanies expect employees to pay lipservice to organizational values, but it’sextraordinary when they hire employees

SalesPerformance

Lessons Learned from theBoardroom to the Street — Fireside Chat SeriesBy: Jean Male, President & CEO, Emp-Higher PerformanceDevelopment, 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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whose self-generated values are alignedwith corporate values. An instrument thatidentifies what prospective hires value candetermine whether individuals are driven bymoney, service, belonging, etc. Identifyingwhat your collective sales team values canhelp develop incentive plans and all aspectsof the performance architecture (Figure 1).Knowing what individuals value can powercoaching, motivation, and more. In otherwords, a sales manager’s rah-rah speechabout bonus may motivate those valuingmoney or material things, but isn’t asmotivational to those valuing belonging toaccelerate regional ranking or for thosewho value service who believe that patientstruly need the product they promote.

Matthew Witte: I believe the fundamentalsto create and sustain high performance startwith executive management commitment. If the executive leaders of an organizationare not committed to allowing salesmanagement to modify the traditionalpharmaceutical sales management model(reach and frequency, calls per day, salessupport) to adapt the needs of eachproduct’s market-specific needs, the effortwill usually fall short.

Jean Male: Nearly 20 years ago, I left Big Pharma to become a SpecialtyBiopharma rep and quickly realized that as the underdog I couldn’t cover the groundor enjoy the share of voice as my BigPharma competitor. Our traditional pharmasales model for routing, call frequency, and marketing mantra (right target, rightmessage, right frequency) would not win thebattle. We needed a narrow and vulnerableplace to strike. Not the high-prescribingfriends who never heard of the company/products, but soft spots being ignored orunprotected where we had a shot at accessand impact. This strategy quickly brokesales records and was reproduced withresounding success even in the lowestproducing territory. The sales model mustbe adapted and representatives empoweredto manage their territories to focus onnew/total Rxs over signature collection.

Craig Eberhard: Other elements that createhigh performance include a strong fieldmanagement team — front line managementand then your field directors. It’s all aboutattracting the talent initially, and then

you’ve got to do all kinds of things to keepit, but you’ve got to first attract the talent,and it starts with the field management.

Matthew Witte: Specialty Pharmaceuticalsales usually means smaller sales forceswith larger geographies. As such, anotherperformance success driver is strategic useof white space to focus sales representativesin areas where they can make an impact.This may mean passing on some lesser, but still lucrative opportunities. Managerburn-out in large geographies is thenumber-one reason for turnover in thiscritical functional position. Investing inmore frontline management to improve spanof control is corporate money well spent.

Jean Male: Absolutely, a specialty salesforce must be highly strategic and focusedso passing on lesser, but lucrativeopportunities is a very viable strategy.Depending upon a number of marketvariables, targeting the lesser, but lucrative,opportunities may also be in order. Bothstrategies seek efficiencies and focus ontime and opportunity costs in largegeographies. The reverse strategy targets

prescribers with smaller individual TRxpotential, but in zip code clusters withequivalent volume as the high-volumepotentials. This can be especially potentwhen competitors lack the specialist’stechnical acumen to educate, identify value,position benefits, and motivate prescribersto remember and specify their product.

Ginger Graham: I have to say that my biaswould not be to necessarily increase thenumber of frontline managers, but to moreaggressively engage the individual employeein the purpose and the boundary conditionsof their job. They can be more informed andmore engaged in their own sense ofaccomplishment and adherence to thecompany’s direction, and their managerscan have useful management tools toeffectively grow and support their team. The idea of de-layering an organization isstill unfulfilled in terms of engaging everyemployee at a maximum level of performanceso that it is self-management, self-direction,and self-motivation that drives performance.If you hire thoroughbreds — very high-performance individuals who want

Figure 1

accountability and who want to demonstrateperformance so that they get recognized for it — then their ability to be successfulis really only aided by management tofacilitate access to resources and guidethem and coach them, not an increasedlevel of oversight or activity management.

Jean Male: So there’s no single “right”approach for span of control or targeting. If the highest caliber professionals are inplace, the first step is to educate themanagement team on all aspects ofperformance and distance management and then to empower the sales force tomanage their territories as small businessowners. Have you seen a number ofdifferent things work over the years?

Craig Eberhard: Yes, I have. Drawing from where I came from, our greatestsuccess was achieved through purposefullinkages between sales, marketing, andmedical affairs. I’m just thinking from mypast in ophthalmology and oncology andeven some things like dedicated teams tofederal government (VA/DOD), Kaiser, orother defined customers. Whenever youcan link the field force back with the homeoffice, specifically marketing and medicalaffairs, collectively better decisions aremade, customers are better served, andsuccess, in terms of sales revenue, customersatisfaction and loyalty follow.

Q: Are there differences in the typeof candidate and competencies thatyou look to hire for Specialty VersusBig Pharma?

Ginger Graham: When you speak tospecialty physicians at a very high clinicallevel, you need to make sure that yourhiring criteria includes an aptitude and an interest in the science and the medicine.For Amylin to launch two first-in-classmedicines with new mechanisms of action,new science not yet taught in medicalschools; our customers are actually learningnew science and applying it in new ways tomedical situations. That requires a level ofscientific and medical expertise andcompetence that has to be supported by theconfidence the organization demonstrates inits breadth and depth of understanding, andits ability to recognize when it should andmust say, “We don’t know the answer. Thathas not yet been demonstrated. Thoseelements are not proven. We don’t have thedata to support that use.” So it really doesrequire someone who is willing to engageheavily in the science, but also has theconfidence to draw the boundaries clearlyof what is known and what is not yet known.

Matthew Witte: It is absolutely critical forsales leadership and field sales managementto calibrate on a shared talent vision for thetype of pharmaceutical talent to bring intoyour organization. This is particularly

critical in Specialty Pharmaceuticalcompanies that may have limited resourcesand cannot afford to have numerous,unproductive territories. What makes agood, tenured primary care representativeis not the same talent that makes for a goodSpecialty representative. Even morecritically, what makes a good cardiovascularspecialty representative is different than anoncology representative. If the talent profileisn’t decided among the entire recruitingteam (including HR) in advance of staffinginitiatives, the team will spend many hoursundoing their hiring mistakes downstream.

Jean Male: Let me underscore your use of“absolutely critical.” Too often, a cavalierapproach is taken to what is seen as amundane task rather than a key driver ofrevenue generation. The ability to attractand retain the right sales talent is arguablymore important than any other aspect in thesales performance architecture. The rightsales and management talent can generaterevenue far above projected marketpotential in today’s commodity marketplaceand all the more with lesser knownspecialty products.

Matthew Witte: We found that recruiting forthree dimensions—work ethic, attitude, andcustomer presence—out-trumps many of themore traditional tenure-related characteristics.

Jean Male: Thanks, for another veryimportant concept. One of the most costlymistakes is failing to clearly define thebehaviors, values, and traits you need tohire because they cannot be trained.Everyone who has ever carried the bag orworked on the customer side of the desk,knows that the representative IS thecompany. Customers’ long memories can beunforgiving of a single bad representativeand conversely can create strong positiveopinion about your company and products.So a clear vision of the sales brand or “face”to present to customers is an important andoft-overlooked step. When a company doesn’tintentionally create a sales brand it’s createdby proxy when everyone knows that the Xcompany representatives are highly polishedprofessionals, while the Y companyrepresentatives are therapeutic area experts,and the Z company representatives areBarbie and Ken dolls. But not having anysales brand at all is missing out on an

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important opportunity for differentiation.Performance planning should be consideredin all aspects from articulating the behaviors,values, and traits of your sales brand to thecreation of field titles, (“TherapeuticConsultant” or “Territory Manager”) andcorporate tag lines (“The X care specialists”or “Partners in Practice”). Mindful selectionof what is on representatives’ cardsreinforces the sales brand and expectations.For example, a subtle but importantPygmalion effect takes place when the cardsays Territory Manager and/or the XSpecialists because customers hold themaccountable for their (card) claims, whichcan fuel performance as their managermight if they were with them every day.

Q: What are your thoughts abouthiring as it relates to creating andsustaining high performance inSpecialty Pharma sales?

Craig Eberhard: We had more than 17,000people apply for 300-plus sales positions.So we could afford to be choosey. We lookedfor more than (experience or) clinicalaptitude because a lot of people were ableto demonstrate sales performance and thecapacity to communicate complex salesmessages. We also chose to establish theright cultural fit between the candidate andour company. Who did we want representingus, and certainly clinical representationwere important, but not the only things.There were cultural requirements that ourcompany had. We found reps wantedaccountability and ownership for theirperformance. So we had people that were

requiring that in their job search; that theywould be ultimately accountable andrewarded. Also some risk tolerance. Thisdoesn’t mean they were risk seeking, butthey’re willing to put their skill (on the line)and have the confidence in their abilities.

Matthew Witte: Unfortunately, SpecialtyPharmaceuticals are full of sales managerswho hire only experience. This leads tosales specialists who are “jobbers” andrarely work more than 2 to 3 years at agiven company before taking a job change,usually for a small salary jump. Buyerbeware: Specialty sales forces should run,not walk away from these candidates andfocus on candidates with true sales talent.

Jean Male: I’m glad you’ve raised the pitfallsinherent in focusing too much on the hiringcriteria of experience. Hiring extensiveexperience can backfire in a number of waysthat are catastrophic for sales performance.If an elite attitude is fostered, a veteran“above-it-all” mindset develops, creating asales force that is resistant to learning andcoaching. I encounter these sales dinosaurs inthe field and in the classroom. What’s worse,unlike the dinosaurs that became extinct bystanding still in the tar pit, these dinosaursevolve into prima donnas. Sadly, seniormanagement have unwittingly created, housed,and fed a demanding monster that can createserious near- to mid-term revenue setbacks.New line managers are at their mercy andthose that insist upon raising the bar canforce mass exodus (jobbers) out onto themarket. Creating specialty prima donnas is tobe averted at every step in the performancesystem, starting with hiring. �

JEAN C. MALE(formerly Mowrey)

President & CEO,Emp-HigherPerformance

Ms. Male brings greater than 25 years of

experience in allied medicine, pharmaceutical

and biotechnology worlds on the client,

supplier, and end-user sides of the business.

The depth and breadth of her experience

has provided insight into the business

drivers of key stakeholders from physicians’

offices, hospitals, laboratories, and

emergency services, to record breaking

primary care and specialty care field

representative, acclaimed sales training

director, international sales performance

consultant, product manager (launched

biotech and drug delivery devices) and

business development director.Since 1997,

Ms. Male has been the President of

Emp-Higher Performance Development, Inc.,

a New Jersey-based firm specializing in

sales performance initiatives from hiring

through retention. The performance focus

includes strategic planning, performance-

based needs assessment, training and

development, and measurement of all field

sales employees. Ms. Male’s expertise is

acknowledged in interviews and articles in

global sales and industry journals including

Pharmaceutical Executive, Selling Power

Magazine, Pharmaceutical Representative,

PharmaVoice, Selling Power Online, and

MedAd News, among others. Jean is a past

President of the Society of Pharmaceutical

and Biotech Trainers (SPBT). SP

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