A digital approach to selling gives field teams more adaptability, but the transition can be challenging.<\/p>\n
As a commercial leader at a large biopharma, I transitioned my sales team to a hybrid digital model through hands-on implementation and developing a coaching model with trial and error. Under this new model, my field teams now have the flexibility to engage the customer exactly when and where they prefer: whether it is at home, at an office, or in a parking lot.<\/p>\n
Coaching for Digital Excellence<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges that the sales team faced was a belief that our customers would not adapt to digital channels. However, Veeva Pulse data<\/a> shows that the average duration of a Veeva CRM Engage Meeting<\/a> was 19 minutes globally in 2020, suggesting that there were substantial opportunities to engage digitally with HCPs.<\/p>\n To build the field\u2019s confidence and allow them to take advantage of these digital engagement opportunities, we devised a training system that helped the field teams frame the same selling principles they already know in a digital space.<\/p>\n We came up with an acronym, GREAT, that the field teams could use to guide their digital interactions. These five traits—growth mindset, reset expectations, empathy, anticipation, and telegenic personality—helped ground the field as they went into uncharted territory.<\/p>\n Field teams who embodied the GREAT qualities were most successful in unfamiliar situations, such as periods of reduced physical access to customers.<\/p>\n