HOW TO CRACK THE CODE IN YOUR SALES PROCESS

Each of us in sales has a choice every day. Do we just do activities? Do we treat each prospect as equally likely to care and want to learn about our product, have the problem that we solve? Or do we spend time thinking like a detective? Who is most likely to have committed this crime? Who Had means, motive, and opportunity. Now, in the US, there's a big murder case that's going on today, and it was kind of crazy. And I've been kind of following it, but not seriously. And then they arrest this guy, and I was like, well, how do they know how he did it? Now, they did some great detective work. There was DNA at the site. The DNA was not in their database, but they can go to these, um, public DNA databases— 23andMe and the others. I don't know which ones are public and which ones aren't, but they can find people in there that were related to this person. Oh, here we go. And then they've got a Ring doorbell picture of a car driving by at that time. So now they've got DNA, car, and all of a sudden they've got a suspect. And then they can get the cell records and say, well, wait a second, where was he at this time? Oh, he turned his phone off during the time of the crime and then turned it back on right when he got home and then leaves the state, gets pulled over twice. Now, my point here is, you could go about trying to find out who committed this crime by motivation. Why? What did they have to gain? That didn't get anywhere, because it didn't— it seems senseless. So, the motive isn't clear. But if you think, if you put your effort Instead of into activity, you know, talk to everybody, walk around the town, interview every single citizen. That's the census taker approach. The detective approach is, well, I could do that, but I don't have time for that. I have to think through the evidence that I have and see if I can trace it to a possible suspect. Because since it's a senseless crime, there's no motive, or no clear motive, or known motive. So, you can say, well, was there some revenge, some jealousy, some kind of human emotion that would cause such a horrific crime? No, there wasn't, at least not apparently. My point here is not how to solve a crime. My point here is we all have a choice. Of how we approach our territory. And some of us have more complex products and territories and trying to find out who is most likely going to be able to help us and have the need and the want and the desire and the curiosity to learn about what we're selling and who doesn't. And Of course, it's on a spectrum. It's not yes or no. And each of us, we have this mix of activity and analysis or thinking about who is most likely going to care about what we sell. And this is what we're going to talk about today. Because I think today, and what I see and observe, is that the needle is all the way To the left on activity. The problem is sometimes you can do all the activities, work 80 hours a week, and still not find that suspect, not find that prospect, that deal. And this is the time of the year where people send out this spreadsheet telling you how many dumb things you can do or have to do to make your quota. Here's a different way to look at it. How about the smarter way of doing it? Because hard work has a limit. We only have 24 hours in a day. You can't buy another minute. You can't sell another minute. But there's no limit to how smart we can work. And it's not one or the other. Because to work smart, you do have to put a lot of effort into it. But in most cases, if you're— unless you're selling just a commodity and people already understand it, and you're all about trying to find the person who's just about to expire or upset with the incumbent, what we have to do is think through it. And even in that case, you're better off Really analyzing it, thinking about who are most likely to be at that point.

Why?

What's that trigger event? What's that cause and effect? How do they want to be approached? And this thinking through, managers aren't giving much credit to, even though it's infinitely more effective. Everybody is addicted To being busy. And busy can work in some cases. And if that's your bag, I'm not trying to talk you out of it. I just want you to look at it from a different angle. Because what I've seen in the courses and the people that I've worked with, there's always a smarter way. There's always a better way of looking at it, a better way of finding these people, a better way of approaching them. A better way of helping them. That's what we're going to talk about today. Now, today's guest has a really hard problem. He's selling a very specific pharmaceutical, but it's not about pharmaceuticals. At least just map this to what you're selling today and don't get hooked on exactly what they're selling or who they're selling to. Because look at how the problem is solved and how you could leverage a different way of looking at it to sell more. Because that's really where the fun is. Is the fun grinding door-to-door, phone number to phone number, email address to email address, you know, taking your whole total addressable market, the thousands of potential people, and going A to Z? That's one way to do it. Another way is thinking through, what is the smartest way of doing this? Who is most likely to care about this? Who is easiest to get a conversation started with? If I sell one person, can they help me sell many people, or is that deal autonomous and not connected or coupled to any other deal? Now, a lot of people don't want to do this thinking, and that's okay. But I got to tell you, every time I've seen great salespeople be successful, they're not doing the pure activity. They're doing the cerebral work, the connections, the understanding of who's most likely, because not all of them are equal. And a lot of that we can figure out before we even invest a lot of time trying to get the conversation started with them. Now, we really get into this in this interview today. This is much more engaging than a lot of the different interviews, and a lot of the things that come out of it I'll sum up at the end. But think through this because there's no end to this, and this is fun. This is more interesting Than sending your spam and your cadence machine gun and pointing it at your total addressable market and hoping somebody is willing to engage with you and you happen to hit them at just the right moment. Is that fun? I don't know. I don't find it fun. I find it much more fun to think through and outsmart my competition because the days of me wanting to grind That they ended a long time ago. I hate wasting time. How about you? Let's get into it. I'll sum it up at the end. Here we go.

Hey, Jason, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Thanks for having me, Brian. My name is Jason Plant. I live in Columbus, Ohio. I got a wife, Kathleen, and 2 daughters, Remy, 10, and Lila, 8. I've been working in the pharmaceutical industry for about 20 years. This is actually my 20th year, 2023. So started in '03. The last 9 years I've spent working in rare disease and we could talk a little bit more about that. But yeah, the rare disease is a, you know, kind of a, a newer thing in the industry. So, and that's what I'm up to now.

Cool. I gotta tell you, I've been doing this, this is my 13th year, first pharmaceutical rep. On this show.

I don't know why that is.

It's gotta be, it's a very popular profession.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting, you know, I get a lot of calls, you know, people wanting to break into pharma for sure.

I can only imagine it's hard.

It's hard. I mean, it's, listen, it's, it's fun. It's challenging. I, I, you know, I kind of fell into it. I'm sure you were gonna ask me this probably at some point, but I can just go into it. My, I was in, I was in graduate school at Ohio State and had actually already taken a job to be, to be a management trainee for Steak 'n Shake of all things. Um, and I was at a barbecue with a buddy. His wife worked for a company called Eli Lilly. And she said, hey Jason, you ever think about being a sales rep? Pharma rep. And I'm like, no, never really thought about that. Next thing you know, I'm on a flight to Chicago and I launched a product that you're probably well aware of, Cialis.

It's— I have no idea what that is. Yeah.

So I've heard all the jokes, right? But, you know, that's kind of where I started in the industry back in '03.

Yeah. And did you like it at first?

Oh, I love, I mean, right away, like just, Really loved it. I mean, kind of fit like a you know hand and glove for me. I have my undergraduate degrees in marketing, and and then I went into the military, and then my grad degree was an MBA in marketing management. You know, so understanding consumer needs, customer needs was always something that I was keenly aware of. I just hadn't really considered sales as a career, and the rest is history. I mean, I love it. You know, I I could remember. When I first got in, you know, I was working the north side of Chicago and, you know, I'd park my car and, you know, walk from office to office. Um, back then everybody still wore suits, right? So I had a suit on every day. I've got funny stories about, you know, I think a lot of people know about, you know, the, the, the fact that drug reps, we often bring lunches into the offices and stuff. And, uh, I can remember one instance where I used to bring Italian food and I brought this Italian lunch in and I reached over the table and Next thing I looked down and I've got tomato sauce all over. We had to go in and change, go back to the house and change. But a lot of good, a lot of good times.

And what keeps you in it? Because I got to imagine it's hard.

I think, you know, the thing that's kept me in it is really, you know, it's, it's a unique opportunity where you can, you know, you can make a nice living, but I do think that I'm contributing to society, right? I mean, I do, I do really believe in the mission of pharma. And, you know, I think there's, there's some misperceptions around the cost of medications and these kinds of things. And I think there's a lot of work that could be done positively. I mean, I, if you look at what the world just went through, right, with this pandemic, I think pharma was, you know, should capitalize on some of this, you know, some of the positive things that were done. The science was ready for the pandemic, you know?

Yeah, that's true.

That's what keeps me in it really is, you know, the fact that I can, you know, make a good— it's all I've ever done professionally really. So. I'm kind of ruined now, probably. But, but I really do love it. I just, I have a passion for it and lots of great people, you know. So there's something about going to see a doc.

So what's so— what's the hardest part of it? Is it just the constant rejection? Because I'm sure not every receptionist, oh, come on in, Jason, waiting for you.

To me, the hardest part of it is, is our reputation as an industry, honestly, in the eyes of the clinician. That's like probably the Biggest thing that we have to overcome when we're going into an office, right, is throwing up. You know, when they see you, they kind of see you as the pharma rep, right? So you got to really find a way to connect with that clinician and get them to trust you, right? I mean, this is, you know, I've heard you talk about complex selling. I mean, it's a very complex sell because not only do you have to, you know, be very well educated in the disease, And then your treatment and probably the other treatments that are, that are out there. But there's also another decision maker that you're never going to see, and that's a patient. So, you know, I think storytelling and being able to be compelling, especially in rare disease, is really important.

And how do you get past that gatekeeper? Because I'm sure that they're told, don't send anybody back. Don't, don't tell them I'm busy.

Well, I think you've got to tell them the story, right? I mean, the same story that you're, you know, don't, you know, I tell folks all the time is don't look past the person that's in front of you, whether it's a receptionist, a nurse, you just never know where somebody in their family could be affected. I mean, when I first broke into rare disease, the very first patient that I found with this ultra-rare metabolic disease, you know, it's a, I mean, super rare. It's called hypophosphatasia. The very first patient that I found on my own. was because of a conversation I had with a lady at the front desk of this office.

Okay.

I told her the story about what I was there for. Um, you know, obviously I don't go into as grave a detail as I would with a clinician, but gave her a good idea of what we were there to talk about. And she looked at me and goes, oh, we just had a kid in here that sounds a lot like that. Now, in my mind at the time, I'm thinking, oh yeah, right. There's no way. Well, it turns out The kid really did have this disease and his mother had it too. And that's something that you can't really, when you're involved in helping somebody find out they have a rare disease and changing their life, I mean, it's a rare metabolic bone disease. They have bone pain, they fracture, you know, it's a terrible disease. Hypophosphatasia is when you have any sort of a contribution to helping that person get an answer. What else? I mean, what else can you ask for?

And how many pharma reps do you think hit that doctor's office a day?

Oh, I mean, it just really depends, right? Like it's, it's changed a lot. You know, when I first started, I was, it was a primary care, you know, and that's kind of how the industry is. You know, there's, there's more commodity type products, you know, for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, these type of things. And then as you move through your career, reps become more and more specialized. Um, it, it just really depends on the specialty, like oncology. There's obviously a lot of research in cancer. So an oncologist is going to be a lot of people knocking on their door, which makes it tough on the oncology reps. I've never personally worked in that space. Um, but it really just varies. I mean, I think, and then you've got COVID on top of it, right? Just imagine that you're in a healthcare world. I mean, we launched the company I'm working for now, work for this company called Arrhenia Pharmaceuticals. We have a A, you know, a new product for another terrible disease, a rare disease, lupus nephritis. It's the kidney complications involved with lupus. And we launched during the pandemic. We launched in '21, early '21. So you can imagine like, oh, and by the way, our drug's an immunosuppressant too. So there's a lot of education involved. And, uh, yeah, it's tough. I got a lot of respect for the reps that do this job. I mean, it's, it, you know, it's, it's probably harder than it's ever been. Yeah.

And also like, how do you get judged? Because I gotta imagine like even the, the doctor doesn't buy the pills from you. They write a prescription.

Prescriptions. Yeah. And it's patient starts, you know, and, and depending on, so like in these rare disease companies there, it's a, it's a, it's a different model. Like we track, the company knows every patient that gets put on the drug. Now, for some of the bigger companies, they actually buy this data from pharmacies. So they, you know, they, there's a, there's companies that, you know, collate this data and then the company buys it. And I, I mean, I could tell you some stories about that. We don't have all day, but I could tell you some stories about how inaccurate some of that data could actually be. But, you know, it just really depends on, you know, what, but in rare disease, we know, right? Because there's only You know, so many patients out there. So we track every shipment, and then that's you know how the it's actually funny today we were just doing our comp call on on the how the you know how the comp is going to be for 2023. So um those calls are always fun.

I bet.

Yeah.

Makes you proud to be a manager, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I know, right? I'm just like yeah. Let's just let's go out and do the best for yeah. Just do the best for patients. Tell a great story and. Let the number, you know, the numbers will work themselves out. You got to be patient in rare disease. I mean, once again, I've heard you talk about this in some of your other videos. You know, oftentimes in a rare disease scenario, you see the doctor, let's say today.

Yeah.

They may not see one of these patients that you're there to talk to them about for days, weeks, or even months.

Who knows?

So, and then you might not see that doctor again for another, you know, it's not like you can get appointment with, especially the ones that are More sought after because they see more patients, right? So more reps are calling on them. Those docs are harder to see. So, you know, it's just, they gotta do it when you're not around. They're gonna have to be compelled by the information that you've given them, how it's gonna help their patient reach a better outcome. And then they're gonna have to remember that if and when they want, they open the, you know, exam room door, that one of those patients is sitting there in front of them.

Yeah. And what makes a great pharma rep?

You know, for me, I think it's a few different things, right? I mean, as I just said, you know, with COVID and everything, grit's really important.

I bet.

You know, everybody, and everybody talks about grittiness, right? Like I just watched a TED Talk with a, and I forget the lady's name, but I just watched a TED Talk the other day about a lady talking about grit. And I think grit is not just working hard, But it's how you can, you know, overcome objections, how you can be patient. Because once again, if you're in rare disease, like they're not coming every day, you know, you're not getting these patients every day. So oftentimes it's a surprise when you hear, you know, you get a call from the pharmacy that a start form has come in. You don't even know it's coming. I think that's really important. I think being a good storyteller, you know, a lot of these docs, They're used to seeing pharma reps and, you know, all the pharma reps come in. They've got a vis aid. They've got a pitch, right? That they've been taught by the marketing team. And they're like, hey, what are you here to sell me today? What are you here to talk to me about today? Right? So I think the reps that can connect and aren't afraid to tell their own story and kind of adopt what the marketing team has given them and make it their own.

Yeah.

You know, I had my first opportunity to, to interview folks and build a team a couple years ago. And what I was looking for is people that I could connect with easily, right? I mean, somebody that if I was standing in line at the grocery store, it'd be easy to talk to, right? I mean, that's, that, that's invaluable. Um, and I think really being genuine and being authentic, which I don't know if that, you know, it's interesting, like it's hard to teach that, I think, you know, you, you either—

Well, that's it. I couldn't imagine that the doctor If, if they know you, let's say they, you've been in before.

Mm-hmm.

They make that decision. Do I want to talk, sit down another 20 minutes or not with this person?

Was that— Just happened to me. Yeah. Yeah. That just happened to one of the reps I was with the other day. The guy came in and he was standing up and she's awesome and she's done it for 25 years. She got him to sit down. Now he sat there and talked to her for 20 minutes. She didn't get a, you know, she didn't get a patient out of it. There wasn't an immediate reward. I, I could tell we left the call, she was a little bit, you know, She's like, oh, I didn't get a patient. I said, well, look, you got that guy to sit there and talk to you for 20 minutes. He was standing up ready to leave.

Yeah.

You just met him the first time. He was a stranger to you, right? So that's another thing I think is being, celebrating the incremental wins, right? It's another thing. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta, there's not gonna be an immediate reward every time. Just isn't.

Yeah. And, and what's your average day look like as a pharma rep? Is it like how many doctors? Is that how you get Measured or?

Well, they have metrics, right? So, you know, and, uh, I'm not a big fan of them because I think I'd rather see quality than quantity, right? Um, and what's a call really, you know? So, um, they're expecting you probably to see 3 or 4 docs a day would be, it would be a good day. Now, seeing a doc means a lot of different things, right? I mean, if you have a lunch, the doc comes in, you're going to get more time sometimes. Right. I mean, it just depends on the office you're in or the institution. Other times you might just get a quick 30 seconds.

Yeah.

And then can you turn that 30 seconds into a minute or 2 minutes? Right. Those are the, you know, those are the difference makers or having relationships where you can reach out or they reach out to you when they find a patient. You know, that's, it really is, it's a jungle out there. I mean, you gotta go out and do it yourself. It's pretty, it's pretty, pretty, you know, rough and tumble game really.

And during COVID did, how did you adapt? Did you find the phone or email or webinars or some kind of other way of connecting and communicating with doctors? You had to do something, right?

You know, email was big, virtual was big, but believe it or not, I mean, and that's the other thing that's amazing to me. A lot of our people were able to get in front of people live still. Still now, not, yeah, not as frequently obviously, but we, we had to adapt. And when we did do a lot of things virtual, we did, You know, we have clinicians that are, you know, contracted to speak as an expert on our behalf about the disease or the product. We did virtual programs that way. I will tell you though, that there's nothing like a live meeting. I mean, the Zoom is good, right? It's better than nothing, but you still don't— what I've found with these virtual meetings is that it's easy for people to disengage.

Yep.

Right. Oh, I gotta go. You know, that whole, that whole deal.

I'm gonna hurt playing with their phone or thinking about something else.

People are easily distracted, right? ESPN on the screen above or whatever it is. So, um, but yeah, I think we've had to adapt. Now, I will tell you though, that it seems to be, you know, moving more towards normal. I don't know if it'll ever be the same. I think there's an element of clinicians out there that didn't love pharma reps in the first place, right? So this is like the, this is like the built-in excuse to, you know, finally put the, you know, put the sign on the door that says, you know, we don't see reps anymore, you know, COVID-19, whatever. So it's another obstacle that we have to overcome.

And anything about social media that helped you? Are they on LinkedIn or do they participate in YouTube?

Yeah, LinkedIn, YouTube. I mean, we, you know, I, I mean, I have a lot of connections with clinicians that I've met over the years, you know, because that's the other thing is you move through the, you know, your time in the industry, you might be working in diabetes for a while, then you move out of it and you're into osteoporosis, then you move back. I mean, like I started off, I, you know, I was selling Cialis, then I sold a cholesterol medication for a company called Kos. Then I went to Amgen and sold to kidney docs. Then I got away from that and it was into rare disease with pediatric docs. Now I'm back with kidney docs and rheumatologists. So, I've actually reconnected with docs that I knew back in the early 2000s now that I'm back in kidney disease, right? So there's, you know, you've got old relationships that you rekindle and stuff. But yeah, the social media part is important too.

And how important is the, the medical side of it? Your knowledge as the rep, you know, do you just need a good 30-minute, 20-minute, 10-minute understanding of it, or do you really need to dig in?

I mean, I would say, especially in rare disease, you really need to dig in as a rep. Now, the, you know, to me, the best reps, you were asking, I mean, what great looks like. I mean, I think the reps that can articulate the science and the doc, I mean, the best compliment you can get as a rep is if a doc says, hey, are you on the medical team? Are you an MSL? Now you know, like, you've earned their respect. You've done a good job. Obviously, there are things that, you know, so, and that's the other thing about our industry a lot of people don't know is that there's a lot of rules. Like, we can't just go to a doctor and say whatever we want.

No.

I mean, there's all—

You can't make up stuff.

Yeah, yeah. You can't just make stuff up, right? You know, there's people, you know, there's fines and there's things involved with that you can't, you know, you obviously can't do. And also, a lot of times when you bring out a treatment, clinicians are interested in other uses for that treatment. And that's where a lot of times our medical colleagues come in. They can come in, And have those conversations, you know, because they're not compensated on sales really, right? So they, you know, and that's it. These partnerships are important too. Being a sales rep that's, you know, quick to recognize that there's a need from the doctor for more clinical information about another use or whatever you, you know, you want to have that relationship with your MSL so that, because that looks good for you if you can get them in there to follow up quickly and address that doc's concern.

And have you had any success hiring from other industries into pharma?

I haven't. I've thought about that actually. You know, it's really interesting that over time, the further you get in the industry, it gets more and more specialized.

Yeah.

And there's not a lot of people that are brought fresh off the street from another industry into pharma. And I don't know if that's a good or bad thing actually. I've thought about that myself, you know, as I move forward, because I do think there is people out there that would have the talent for it, obviously, you know, that may, that may not be in it. And there's probably people that have been in it for a long time, look great on paper, right? But I mean, some of these products, you know, it's, it's confirmation bias. You know, some of these products kind of move themselves. I mean, you know, you've got some of the word gets out. Yeah. I mean, you know, once, if a product's so good, You can almost hurt— sometimes you wouldn't even really need that representative. But when you're working in rare disease, I think it's, you know, it tends to be, you know, the docs value you more and you've got more of a role in helping them, you know, help their patients.

Now I got to imagine that market, especially in the rare disease, not the commodity side.

Yeah.

That if you found like a kingpin doctor, Like the specialist.

Yep.

In the area that everyone looks to. If you get that person to be on your side, because I gotta assume that everyone else, it's a referral business.

Yes.

The medical side of it.

Yes.

And I'm sure when they've got a patient and they don't know about you, they call the specialist.

Absolutely. We refer to those people as thought leaders. And actually, interestingly enough, my first leadership role after being in sales, I was hired as a director of what we call thought leader liaisons. So there's actually a, they're not sales, they're all mostly former salespeople. They're not incented on sales, but they're there to kind of connect with these thought leaders. Because to be frank, These big thought leaders don't want to talk to sales reps. They don't want to be sold.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

So how do you, how do you make a connection with them and bring them, you know, get them to talk to you where they, where they, where there's no, you know, threat of a sale, I guess is the best way to put it. You, you've got to have another role there. And that's where the thought leader liaisons come in. Oftentimes these are the people that we, you know, that we partner with to, to, you know, speak, you know, speak on the disease to other clinicians. You know, they've got, they play an important role, but I think in the future I could see a place where that thought leader liaison type role becomes more and more important just because of the nature of how sales is viewed really by some of the clinicians.

And how about on the internal scientific side? Don't, do they, those doctors want to talk to those, the people creating Oh, no, no doubt about it. Yeah.

There, you've, you've hit a hot button there. So the company I work for, the founders, the guys that actually brought the medication from concept to launch were all working here up until the end of this, just this past year. They, you know, they've moved on to greener pastures now, but the first couple weeks I was here, You know, I met with, I met with these guys on, and I immediately recognized that their passion for what we were about. They had a great story to tell. And what we ended up doing was creating a program. Our head, our company's headquartered in Canada. It's a Canadian company. They were flying across the border and going, we had them going around talking to other clinicians, having them tell the story. You know, and I think just, you know, you can have a rep go in there 20 times, but if they meet the guy that, Did the real work. Um, now I'm a believer that we should just tell the story the way they're telling it anyway. I think I've—

Call me crazy.

Yeah. Call me crazy. Right. So, I mean, I think that story, that innovation story, you know, I tell my team that I'm working with now all the time. That was kind of my mantra when I took over the role as a, as a sales director in January. I said, look guys, like we're gonna do away with the term messaging. We're, we're getting rid of it. We're here to tell our innovation story, partner with these clinicians, listen to what their needs are. And you'll find that the answer is in that story that our founders, you know, if it was good enough, because we think like our founders, they, what they didn't just do the science, they actually went and went to Wall Street and convinced Wall Street to give them money to do the study before they even had a result. Well, so the result we got in our trial, you know, is only what they could have dreamed of. So why change the story?

That's it. And I think that the gap happens, you give it to sales enablement or marketing. Yeah. And they create the messaging about what they think.

Yes.

The doctor wants to hear, but the doctor, they're pa— they're passionate about the patient, the disease, the study, the issues.

Yeah. And there's no, there's no doubt. I mean, I'll tell you what's even, I mean, we had a perfect setup. You know, one of our founders, the standard of care in this disease was, was, was, came from another study that was done. Our founder did that study and then did the study that our drug got approved on to improve upon his old study. So you could go in and say, hey doc, the, the standard of care that you're using right now, The same guy did this study and he did it to improve upon it. Right. And then it kind of rolled from there, you know, but I think what happens a lot of times is we're so, and I'm sure it's the same way in business-to-business sales, we're so eager to, to get to the punchline. The punchline is the efficacy, right? How good, how great this drug works.

Yes.

Well, by default, uh, you wouldn't be in front of a doctor if you didn't have FDA approval. And the FDA approval comes from the drug working. In some form or fashion, you know? So, right. It's the, it's the background information that get, that gets, makes the idea stick.

And, and that's it. And the doctor says, I can read that from the pamphlet.

You, you got it right. What do, what do you do?

They want to talk like somebody who's like really into this.

And like, how's it different? Not that it has the same percentage of this or that.

And I think that's why the doctors, they don't want to meet there. They don't want to hear that, that you reading the pamphlet to them.

They can read, right?

They can read. Yeah.

You know, I'm not, I think one of the things that, you know, we talk about a lot is metrics too.

Yeah.

Right.

What bugs you about that? I like metrics.

Well, well, I, I'll tell you the thing that, you know, I said it earlier, like what's a call?

Right, exactly.

I mean, a call is, hey doc, how you doing? Jason. Hey Jason. That's a call. Or sitting down and having a discussion like you and I, that, that call counts the same in the, in the CRM. Which one meant the most? And you know, the other thing is, if you tell me I need to do 4 calls a day, how many calls am I putting in the system?

Minimum 4.

4, right? You're putting them in, right? You drive 2 hours and— Right.

What's the evidence of a call?

I, I think you said it right. It's, um, you know, a, a measure ceases to be a good measure when it's, when it's not— Goodhart's Law.

Yeah.

Right, right. Goodhart's Law. There you go. So, uh, what I would like to see is that we trust the managers and even the salespeople more to just do their job and inspire them. I mean, if I know when I was a rep, if my manager was like, oh, you, you know, make sure you're getting 4 calls a day. I'm, you know, that's not very inspirational. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna spend time away from my family at 5 o'clock and make that extra call in the office where the doc's, you know, leaving for the day if I know that all they care about is this number on a, on a sheet of paper or whatever.

Yeah. And, and how about this? Tell me about your best call from yesterday.

I mean, I'm a big communicator. You, you can probably tell I like to talk a lot, so, right.

I'm on Because if you get 10 reps and you get, you're on a team call and you say, who had a great call yesterday? What was great about it?

Right.

Who was able to overcome the gatekeeper? How'd you do it? Who was most creative?

That's a lot more fun than who had the most calls.

Well, and it's just not a good, you know, it's not a good indicator To me, uh, uh, looking at a call, I mean, it's just not a good indicator. There's so many questions.

There's anything.

It's, there's so many questions, you know, I'll tell you a funny story. You'll like this one. So I had a colleague that told me this, um, we were talking about this exact subject. He was at a meeting at a, at another company that he worked for and they were talking about calls per day and they were like, look, if, if we can go from 9 calls a day per rep to 10 calls a day, We should see this much more sales.

Of course.

And, and one of the, there was a guy in the room that was a tenured sales guy. He stood up, grabbed his pencil and he goes, you hear that pencil? 10 calls a day. And everybody in the room was like shocked that the guy stood up and did it, you know? But point being like, it's not the calls.

It's not the calls.

Right? It's, it's, it's the work. It's the, it's the story. It's the connection. It's, You know, it's your value proposition. It's, you know, make it, getting that clinician to trust you that you're not there just to sell 'em something, that you're actually there to help them help their patient, right? I mean, I say it all the time, we don't need anybody on our therapy that doesn't really need it. If we got all the people on our treatment that really needed it, we'll do just fine.

That's it. And why do you think that people above who mandate these things, is it that they're not thinking Or they think every call's equal.

They need something to measure.

Yeah.

That's all it is, right? I mean, this goes as high as the top.

It does.

I mean, like I told you, evaluations. I mean, people are, they need, you know, when in my view, it'd be a lot easier just to look at the, the results, right? What's your revenue? How many patient starts are you getting? Why aren't you getting more patient starts? What's the objection that you need to overcome to to get doctors to utilize more of your product for their patients. There's, you know, the end result does it lie. I mean, you know, the number of patients you have on the drug and, you know, I think the best way to get a clinician to is for them to have a good experience with a patient. They'll use it again and again and again. I mean, the selling never, that's what makes pharma complex too, Brian, is that The selling never really stops. It's not a one-shot, you know, you sign the deal and, you know, there's a lot of different things that can happen behind the scenes. I mean, I don't even get me started on the insurance and getting it paid for and all that stuff. I mean, that's a whole nother, I mean, that's a whole nother deal. But, but a good rep has to be able to manage all that.

And is that the number one thing that kind of burns people out is the focusing on the things that don't matter?

I think so, right? I mean, I think it's, you know, look, the group that I'm working with, they're all very tenured. I mean, you're not going to get a job with a rare disease company unless you've got significant sales experience. So they kind of know the game and they let it roll off their backs. But yeah, I think the thing that it's just all this, it's all the sidebar talk, right? It's these, it's distracting more than anything.

It is.

You know, it really, I don't think people that are mandating these things understand how much it takes focus away from what's important.

Right. Because I got to imagine if you have a territory selling what you're selling, the volume of calls has nothing to do with it. It's like, what's your strategy? Who's that kingpin thought leader?

Right.

I would put 10 times more into that than any other person. How do I get them to buy into it? Get their network, get the introductions. Yeah. That would be effective. I mean, effect—

yeah. Effective reps can build, build, you know, build referral networks, right? Hey.

Yeah.

If you don't wanna manage this patient, doc, there's a doc down the street and I'd love to connect you with them. You can make that referral.

And is that, The primary way of getting past the, the leave your brochure, is that referral recommend or mentioning the doctor?

Yeah, I think, you know, I think sometimes, I mean, I think it's the combination of things. I mean, I think if, if you tell a compelling story about why you're there and how you're there to help them, a lot of that other stuff just comes naturally then, right? Because they're, they see your value.

Yeah.

And what you're trying to do to help their patient. I mean, ultimately all these clinicians, you know, they're busy, they're probably busier than they've ever been in the history of being a doctor, right? They've got a lot of pressure on 'em. I mean, they've got pressure on 'em, right? I mean, if they work for an institution, it's like, how many patients did you see today? You know, they got their metrics. They got metrics, buddy. I mean, that's a whole, yeah, they've got, well, their metrics make sense. Oh, yeah, they do. But, but I do think there's a lot of pressure on them, right? So, you know, their time is, is so valuable. Um, and just telling a rep, look, you can go, go see that tier, you know, just go see that.

Just push harder.

Yeah. Go, yeah. Go see that top tier guy and just, you know, getting it, you know, getting his grill and, and make sure that you, you know, you hit him with our message. I mean, come on. Like, can't go to the Cleveland Clinic and do that. Like, we get laughed out of there. I mean, they're, they're, you know, they're, and they're humans.

Yes, they are.

They are human beings. I mean, you know, it's uncanny how I will, I'll tell you a story that the thing that made me kind of click over from the messaging thing to being a storyteller, my very first job, I didn't, like I said, I'd never really sold before. I was working for this big pharma company, Eli Lilly, great training, right? They trained us on the disease. They trained us on the therapy. I mean, you know, I knew a lot, you know, and felt really good about being out here. They want to make sure that you're prepared to go in and talk to a clinician, but then they give you your vis-à-vis, they give you your message. So I'm in Chicago, new guy on the block, never been in pharma before, right? I go in these offices and I just thought to myself, well, I'm going to make a connection. You know, you went to Johns Hopkins, you know, are you a Baltimore Ravens fan? Whatever, right? They have a fishing picture on the wall. I'm trying to Make, and usually I could find my way into that connection, get 'em to let the guard down. But the second that I took that Vis-Aid out and went into my pitch, body language change. Oh, Jay, you know what? I gotta go. Right? So I thought to myself, after a few months of going through this, I thought, man, I'm not gonna do that anymore.

Smart.

But, but here's the, here's the crazy thing. I had to do it when my manager came to ride with me. So what I would honestly, this is crazy, Brian. What I would honestly do is I, I would, I would take him on a milk run of only people that I really knew well. And I would say, look, I'm bringing my boss with me. Can you just play along? I'll be back tomorrow. I'll bring you guys lunch. I'll just play along. Right. Cause I'm going to, I got to, I got to. I gotta get my Vis-Aid out. I gotta point to the thing with my pen. I gotta do the whole thing or he's gonna be, you know, he's gonna be pissed at me. So, but that's how ridiculous it was, right?

Yep.

And once again, I think that's what kind of drew me into sales leadership. I was like, man, I'm never gonna beat that guy. I'm never ever gonna let that. And it's my, you know, just like you wanna make sales great again, I wanna make pharma sales great again. And I want, it's my mission to, Let's talk about what's real. We have a real opportunity as an industry to improve our reputation. You know, pharma helps save the world from a pandemic.

It does. It's critical, right?

So let's, let's capitalize on that. You know, there's a lot of misperceptions out there. I'll tell you another one, Brian. You know, a lot of people think that drug spend is a huge part of the budget of healthcare. I want to put you on the spot, but if you could guess, of all the spend that's out there for healthcare, right? So doctor's visits, hospitalizations, surgeries, whatever. What percentage of that pie that's spent on healthcare is spent on drugs? Just take a guess.

30?

9%.

Well, it's noise.

Right. It's right. There's a perception issue. Right. And some of that's brought on by ourselves, right? Because they're, you know, you got the, farmer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got people that are doing the wrong thing, right? But I think we need to, you know, we need to do a better job as an industry of, of being the adults in the room really, you know? And, and quit, quit, quit treating these docs like commodities. They're not. They, we're lucky to be able to get to 'em really.

Great. Hey, I really appreciate your time today, Jason. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

I'm on LinkedIn. You know, you can look me up, Jason Plant. Aurenia Pharma. So yeah, I'm on Facebook too, but if you go on Facebook, all you see is a bunch of fishing stuff, but I like to fish.

So. Now you would think management would be all behind this because they're limited in the number of people that they can hire. So the activity thing has a certain limit just by sheer number of hours and the people and the potential people that you're targeting. But if you do it smart, that thought leadership that we talked about there, the kingpin strategy, if we get this expert to recommend this drug to the other doctors, then they become an extension of our sales arm. This thinking through your process and how— what's the smartest way To crush your number. Because the grinding, you're going to wear yourself out. I know you're thinking, oh, not me. I'm disciplined and motivated.

Good.

Knock yourself out. But I've never seen that person crush it and be number one at their company, making the most amount of money, unless they happen to have that great territory. Now, Jason doesn't have that type of territory. We talked after the interview and he goes, well, the demographics of who is affected by this disease and who we can help with this pharmaceutical is not dominant in his territory geographically. It's more dominant in the Southeast and the Southwest for demographic reasons. So he's at a disadvantage there because his territory isn't that rich with the number of patients. So he has to be even smarter about how they invest their time. And you should be thinking about your time as an investment because you can't get it back. Once it's spent, it's gone. You can say, oh, I'll work the weekends and stuff. Well, okay, then you can't rest. And spend time with your friends and family and recuperate. So we have to find smarter ways of selling. And this is what I teach in Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. It's not a better way to send spam. It's not a smarter script. It's how people want to connect with other strangers. It's a step-by-step process. That it's more inside out, inside being the client and outside being us. What I see today, it's all outside looking in, that we have 1,000 prospects. So we have to talk to 1,000 prospects, which means we have to do N number of cold outreaches that turn into N number of discovery calls that turn into N number of demos and presentations. that turn into certain proposals and they close at a certain rate. That is not selling. That is servicing a territory. And honestly, anyone can do that. Oh, but you can't do it as well as I can. Okay, yeah, that's true. But is that the way you want to go through life? You know, the 100 cold calls a day, hoping for that lucky break that somebody picks up, and what's the likelihood that that person who picks up is going to need or want or care about the product? There are smarter ways. And this is what people don't understand about selling. People think it's about charm and personality and grit and determination. They're all good ingredients, but you have to apply it in the most intelligent way. And I don't think it's so much IQ as effort, curiosity, thinking through, okay, so why would anyone buy? Reverse engineering their decision process and how do I fit into that instead of counting the number of doctors I can visit per day. And we kind of laughed at that, both in the interview and after the interview, because that's kind of the conventional, logical way to approach it. And it seems to make sense until you do it. Because once you start doing it, you're finding out how little of— how ineffective it is. And at that point, you start to say, well, there's got to be a smarter way. Good question to ask yourself. Good statement to say, because that will trigger you to start taking action on figuring out the smarter way. And it's okay not to know it at first. You won't. It may take you months or the whole year to figure that out. But isn't that effort worth it? That if you can find out, okay, I got 1,000 doctors in my territory, there's probably 50 that really fit and have patients that need my pharmaceutical. And out of that 50, there's probably 5 that are really both thought leaders and experts in this that the other doctors look to. And of those 5, how can I engage them in great conversations about how we can help their patients, get their feedback? Elicit their participation in this. And you heard that in the interview. They lit up. Jason was like, yeah, that's exactly how we did it. Now, how do you apply this to your territory? Well, I'm not a doctor.

I'm not an expert.

I'm just a sales rep. It's like, okay, okay, okay. So am I. But there are ways. You got to be creative. You got to think outside of the little do dumb things faster box. Where do I put it in my cadence? Is that step 5? No, no, no. You have to think. You have to engage because this is where the magic happens. Anyone can take an order, but how many can really sell? And this is what I say when I say selling, because most people, when I say the word selling, they think you're trying to convince somebody to do something they don't want to do. No, that's pressure. Selling is getting people to see what they want to see, even when they don't want to see it. It's taking that latent pain and turning it into active pain. Because don't you think those doctors want to know about a new pharmaceutical that could help their patients? Don't they want to know that there's an answer for that patient that comes in? With this disease? That there's— isn't that patient asking, isn't there a breakthrough pharmaceutical that could possibly help me? And does the doctor want to be there, I don't know, I don't know, let me do some research? No, they want to know. There's always an approach. Thinking like the client is what we want to do. All of this activity-based stuff is thinking like salespeople. Because a lot of salespeople are very happy with the activity because activity distracts them from thinking. You don't want to be that rep. I've worked with those reps and they can do okay in certain situations, but is that the way you want to live? Is that the way you really want to make a living? Now, also, these deals are complex because you got to trace it back to the patient. So it's really a thinking process, and I hope this motivates you to get creative about it and think about it as a skill instead of just an activity. The activity stuff, yes, you have to do it. You have to get up in the morning. You have to go to work. You have to work hard. No matter how smart you are, you have to do that. We know that. But the difference between the A and the B player is the A player finds a smarter way, a more focused, more thought-out way of getting into their market. Managers, they love us to do busy activities because they assume activity drives results. And yes, to a certain extent, But it diminishes greatly. And if you were sitting around thinking and strategizing, your manager goes, hey, get back to the phones. Well, that's not a good manager. Anyone can say that. A good manager is the catalyst for this thinking, is the person who has the vantage point of 10 reps and What's the smartest way you got that meeting? What's the smartest way you got that doctor on board? That's what you should be sharing, not putting the leaderboard at the— doing the most dumb things the fastest. Is that producing anything? It tends not to when your sale is complex. Let me know what you think. Hey, So check out the courses at b2brevenue.com. This is your year. Sales is a skill. You need to practice it. You need to get better. You need to be curious about it. If you think about it as knowledge, you're going to lose. It's a skill that you have to practice. Think of yourself as an athlete. You know how to play the game, but you got to practice the game. You got to strategize the game. You got to play the game. You gotta talk to other players and how they are able to win that game. Just because you know how to play doesn't mean you're gonna win. Same with any performance profession. It's how well you do it, not just that you do it. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Check out the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers podcast. We'll see you next time.