3 Tips for Teleprospecting into the Pharmaceutical Industry
I have always really loved calling into/managing projects related to the Pharmaceutical Industry. The reason why, to be quite honest, is that this industry seems to grow more and more every day, and prospects tend to want to spend money to be the best option out there (and frankly from what I have seen, they have the money to do it ). Typically, prospects within this industry are open to hearing more about how they can run their operations more efficiently and effectively to get their drugs and other products to market faster. Based on my experience, here are my top three tips to ensure a successful teleprospecting campaign for the Pharmaceutical Industry:
Make sure you have identified the best and most targeted list possible before selecting the “Purchase” button from your list provider. When you pull your initial list, make sure you are searching for a very specific industry type. In most cases, when you search for Pharmaceutical companies, the list is too general and you end up pulling everything from Cosmetics to Toilet Preparations to Medicinals and Botanicals. Make sure you really research your SIC codes, otherwise you might end up with companies like L’Oreal, like I did when pulling my first Pharmaceutical list!
Don’t give up when one business unit tells you No. The great thing about calling into Pharmaceutical companies is that there are so many business units to call if and when one business units says “No.” For instance, look at a company like Abbott. When you go to their website, you can easily see that they not only have Pharmaceutical Products, but also Nutritional Products, Diagnostic Instruments & Tests, Medical & Surgical Devices, Animal Health, and Vision Technologies. In a lot of cases, Pharmaceutical companies operate in such a way that each different business unit can make their own decisions regarding the technology and services they use. If you have a company like Abbott, you could potentially sell to 6 different areas of the organization. Therefore, don’t close out an account after one “No” – do your research first to make sure you are hitting every avenue possible within that one company.
Request that your inside sales reps map out the industry on their own to stay organized. Having called into the Pharmaceutical industry for several years, it allowed me to get very familiar with how the industry tends to work, most notably the propensity for the larger Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences organizations to acquire the smaller ones all the time. As a result, it’s important to stay on top of the acquisitions to make sure calling efforts are focused on the bigger companies, and not spent on the smaller ones that can no longer make these purchase decisions. The best way to do this is obviously by having conversations with prospects - but there are other ways as well. For instance, I suggest joining Pharmaceutical groups on LinkedIn, and subscribing to Pharmaceutical magazines.
What tips can you offer when it comes to teleprospecting into the Pharmaceutical space?