Originally Published MX March/April 2002
ADVERTISING, DISTRIBUTION, & SALES
Is the Bag Too Big?
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Medtech companies
that add new products to the bag of an existing sales team may struggle to achieve
sufficient focus on both new and existing products because their sales reps
may be spread too thin across the products they cover. Following are some of
the problems that can occur when sales reps' bags are too big to handle.
Selective Selling. When reps' bags are loaded with too many products,
they can choose which products they want to sell. Smaller, less glamorous, or
harder-to-sell products may be completely ignored in favor of the easy or comfortable
sell. This can turn into a divisive issue between sales and marketing when product
sales goals are missed. While management can try to direct sales-force efforts
through the compensation plan, spiffs, or contests, the reps ultimately control
how their time is spent. Selective selling can therefore cause significant problems
when launching new products.
Insufficient Product Knowledge. What may seem like a training problem can
actually be a structure problem. Product information and techniques taught in
class need to be practiced and reinforced regularly if reps are going to retain
the knowledge that they were exposed to in training. The more products a rep
is asked to sell, the less time he or she has to focus and stay current on any
one product.
Product Breadth versus Selling Complexity. When reps are asked to promote
five or more product categories, they can begin to lose focus on some product
lines. If products are very similar, the sales process is more transactional
in nature, or if products are less complex, the maximum number of products a
rep can effectively carry increases. For this reason, distributor representatives
carry many kinds of products effectively. But when the product or the sales
process is complicated and detailed product knowledge is required, a rep may
be most effective selling only two or three products. And, of course, newer,
technologically advanced products usually require more knowledge and focus than
more-mature products.
Copyright ©2002 MX
