6 Strategic Behaviors of Best-in-Class Sales Professionals
Turn a complex market into a land of attainable opportunity with these research-identified
best practices.
By Kristoffer Stewart
Executive Summary
What word best describes today’s pharmaceutical
and biotechnology sales environment?
If you said “complex,” you would be echoing
what sales representatives, corporate accounts
managers, L&D managers, business unit directors,
and other industry stakeholders tell us on a daily
basis.
Whether they begin by discussing the increases
in competitive challenges, access restrictions, and
regulatory oversight, or the fact that it seems like
sales professionals need to drive sales without
actually selling, they all end up speaking to the
complexity of the marketplace.
Such a complex marketplace can seem
overwhelming. In fact, it might leave your least
capable sales professionals scratching their heads.
Your middle-of-the-curve performers, meanwhile,
may be getting mired into complacency, and thinking, “if I can just
hit my numbers this quarter, I’ll be fine.” But your best-in-class sales
professionals—your top performers—thrive in this complicated
sales environment [see Figure 2 on page 3]. They drive results in spite
of, or perhaps because of, the complex dynamics of the marketplace.
How do they do it? And how can you get the rest of your sales force
to achieve the same results?
Alliance Performance Systems studied top-performing sales
professionals at some of the world’s leading innovation-led
businesses to answer these questions. As a result of this research, we
identified six behaviors closely linked to the success these best-inclass sales professionals have in the field. These behaviors, described
below, are driven by a variety of critical-thinking questions these top
performers ask themselves as they analyze their accounts.
Behavior 1:
Maximize customer knowledge
Behavior 2:
Capitalize on all available data sources
Best-in-class sales professionals learn
everything they can about their customer’s
business and their customer’s needs. By
increasing both the depth and breadth of
their customer knowledge, top performers
are better able to spot inefficiencies in the
customer’s business—inefficiencies their solutions might alleviate.
To maximize customer knowledge and become experts on their
customer’s business, these sales professionals ask themselves
questions like:
While they see the customer as a veritable
treasure trove of useful information,
best-in-class sales professionals also
identify and capitalize on every relevant,
non-customer data source. They review
industry reports as well as their own
organization’s sales and marketing reports with an analytical eye,
looking for trends, usage spikes, and other key data points to help
them better understand the drivers behind each account. Top
performers also utilize the other headquarters-based sources of
information identified in Figure 1.
• What are my customer’s needs, challenges, and strategic
goals for their organization?
• What criteria are being used to evaluate competing options?
To capitalize on these resources, these sales professionals ask
themselves questions like:
• What is my organization’s sales data telling me about this
customer’s business?
• What data and metrics is the customer using to evaluate the
profitability and efficiency of his or her healthcare business?
© 2013 Alliance Performance Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 4
6 Strategic Behaviors of Best-in-Class Sales Professionals
Figure 1: HQ-based Sources of Information
District managers/
segment directors
Sales reports
Company colleagues in
the field
Account planners & other
analysis tools
The Sales Ops department
POA/compliance reports
The Marketing department
Contracts & business
reviews
Business analytics/
intelligence teams
Price lists
Behavior 3:
See the “big picture”
In addition to digging into the data, bestin-class sales professionals also take a step
back to get a larger view of an account in
the context of their own organization,
its sales goals, as well as the goals of
competitors. With this big-picture
perspective, top performers spot opportunities and constraints
for both their customers and their own organizations. Such
global thinking also allows them to anticipate the “ripple effects”
of business decisions as well as to uncover hidden opportunities
for new business.
To see the “big picture,” these sales professionals ask themselves
questions like:
• What are my organization’s strategic objectives and how do
these align with my customer’s objectives?
• How does my customer perceive my organization’s value,
and what leads me to believe this?
Behavior 4:
Plan to leverage insights
Best-in-class
sales
professionals
allot some account planning time to
leveraging the insights they glean from
exhibiting Strategic Behaviors 1-3. They
make logical connections between the
data and known or predicted customer
assumptions. They also use analytical tools, including SWOT
analysis, to rank multiple solutions before presenting any to the
customer. They organize all of the data and their analysis into a
concise and cohesive “insights narrative” that will appeal to the
particular customer they’re calling on. Their strategic goal is to
use this data-driven narrative to corroborate or correct customer
assumptions and to challenge the customer to think differently
about his or her business.
© 2013 Alliance Performance Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
To effectively plan to leverage insights, top performers ask
themselves questions like:
• On my last account call, what did I share with the customer
that he or she considered valuable?
• What clinical or organizational obstacles exist where I, and
my company’s solutions, might be of value?
Behavior 5:
Nurture strategic relationships
Best-in-class sales professionals leverage
much more than just data and insights…
they also leverage relationships.
In addition to building rapport with
individuals across the customer’s
business, top performers are known for developing connections
with influential stakeholders within their own organization.
Leveraged appropriately, these stakeholders often become
champions and sponsors who make business cases and contracts
more likely to win approval. In addition, these champions and
sponsors are resources best-in-class sales professionals use to help
them address account-related concerns or issues.
To nurture strategic relationships, top performers ask themselves
questions like:
• Who are the internal champions and sponsors at my
organization who can help me to align critical support
resources for servicing the account?
• Who influences decision-making within the account, and
what is important to these particular individuals?
Behavior 6:
Collaborate and share successes
Top performers ensure that their
successes and best practices benefit their
entire organization. They share the
customer data and insights they collect
and analyze cross-functionally and
across business units—and in return,
they seek and request useful data and insights from their peers.
Best-in-class sales professionals also rely on colleagues to help
them develop a consistent and unified account strategy, and they
provide regular account updates to all team members and critical
support resources along the way. To effectively collaborate and
share successes, top performers ask themselves questions like:
• Who are the most effective account managers within my
organization?
• Who else should I be communicating with that could help
me with this account?
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6 Strategic Behaviors of Best-in-Class Sales Professionals
Figure 2: Key Differentiators of “Average Performers” and “Top Performers”
Average Performers…
Top Performers…
•  Are familiar with the customer’s
business and staff
•  Are experts on the customer’s business, staff, and
their organizational, financial, and clinical needs
•  Are familiar with the customer’s utilization
and control policies for their products
•  Are experts on the effect of customer utilization
and controls, and understand the business drivers
•  Rely on the customer’s interpretation
of account-relevant information
•  Perform their own objective analysis and tell a
concise, logical, cohesive story with the data
•  Rely on assumptions the customer has made
•  Corroborate or correct the customer’s
assumptions with solid data
•  Collect surface-level account facts
•  Collect all relevant account data and make logical
connections
•  Offer limited data to support their position
•  Use a range of data from multiple sources to
support conclusions
•  Present a single solution for consideration
•  Perform a SWOT analysis to rank multiple options
before offering recommendations
•  Focus on one account at a time, and
see only the “here and now”
•  See the Big Picture, and understand the “ripple
effects” through the entire book of business
•  Think locally
•  Think globally, beyond any single account
Building a solid foundation
The good news: These strategic behaviors and the questions
driving them are teachable. They can be transferred to all
members of the sales force. The not-so-good news: An individual’s
ability to effectively demonstrate the behaviors depends largely
on his or her capacity for critical thinking and ability to “connect
the dots.” These are skills that are much more difficult to teach
and to master.
Fortunately, Alliance Performance Systems has developed a
series of performance improvement solutions designed to help
sales professionals at all levels along the curve build a solid
foundation for these so-called “soft skills.” In the process, they’ll
practice the core skills that make each of the Six Strategic
Behaviors possible, and over time, learn to spot insights and
opportunities by asking themselves the same kinds of criticalthinking questions top performers ask. These solutions can turn
a complex, and sometimes overwhelming, marketplace into a
land of attainable sales opportunity.
FREE JOB AID
Download our Key Account Insights Generator to explore
more of the questions that drive the 6 strategic behaviors of
best-in-class sales professionals
To find out more about the 6 Strategic Behaviors of Best-in-Class Sales Professionals contact Peter Pisarri at:
[email protected] or call us at (941) 766-0058.
© 2013 Alliance Performance Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 3 of 4
Key Account Insights Generator
Critical-thinking questions best-in-class sales professionals use to analyze their accounts and uncover insights
Behavior
Questions driving the behavior
1.Maximize customer
knowledge
• What are my customer’s needs, challenges, and strategic goals for his or her
organization?
»» What are the customer’s goals—personally, and professionally?
• How do these affect his or her decision-making?
• What criteria are being used to evaluate competing options?
2.Capitalize on all
available data sources
• What is the account’s market share and that of its competitors?
»» How is market share trending for the previous four fiscal quarters?
»» What’s driving the trend?
• What data and metrics is the customer using to evaluate the profitability and
efficiency of his or her healthcare business?
• What differentiates our solutions from each of our competitors’?
3.See the “big picture”
• What are my organization’s strategic objectives and how do these align with
my customer’s objectives?
• How does my customer perceive my organization’s value and what leads me
to believe this?
• Which payer ultimately reimburses the customer for the products my
company sells?
»» What is the formulary positioning (tiers) of those products?
4.Plan to leverage
insights
• On my last account call, what did I share with the customer that he or she
considered valuable?
• What clinical or organizational obstacles exist where I, and my company’s
solutions, might be of value?
• What trends might impact this customer’s business and market share, and is
it important for my customer to know this information?
5.Nurture strategic
relationships
• Who are the internal champions and sponsors at my organization who can
help me to:
»» Put a compelling business case together?
»» Align critical support resources for servicing the account?
• Who influences decision-making within the account?
»» What’s important to these particular individuals?
»» How can I strengthen my relationship with these decision-influencers?
6.Collaborate and share
successes
• Who are the most effective account managers within my organization?
»» How do I connect with them to learn their best practices?
• Who else in my organization has insight into my accounts?
• Who else should I be communicating with that could help me with this
account or to develop new business?
Website: www.allianceperformance.com | Phone: (941) 766-0058 | Fax: (941) 764-8552 | Email: [email protected]
© 2013 Alliance Performance Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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