Is Pharmaceutical Sales The Same As B2B Sales?
By Tino Buntic
You may be in pharmaceutical sales and you may or may not be successful at it. If it's not going that great for you, perhaps it's because you’re using B2B sales tactics when you really shouldn't be. Most sales books and programs teach how to be successful at B2B sales. But in B2B, you sell business products and services and deal with business professionals. In pharmaceutical sales you sell drugs to doctors, physicians, and pharmacists. Is there a difference? Should you be using the same sales tactics?
This article provides questions and not necessarily the answers as to why pharmaceutical sales may be different than B2B sales.
• In B2B you deal with business professionals. These are people that went to business schools and know how business works. In pharmaceutical sales, you deal with doctors that went to med school. A lot of them have never even taken a business course. Perhaps business doesn't even interest them? Should you use the same sales tactics on physicians as you do on business executives?
• In B2B, it is customary to shake hands upon greeting. Should you shake hands upon meeting a doctor? Perhaps doctors are more apt to worry about the transmission of germs and are not comfortable shaking hands with strangers? Should you reach out to shake hands or should you do something else?
• In B2B you can use cold calling as a prospecting method. Can you cold call a physician? Would you want to interrupt a physician that is helping a sick patient?
• In B2B you often have to make a sales presentation to numerous departments and numerous executives and decision makers. A doctor's office normally consists of three people – a doctor, a nurse, and a secretary. How do you present to them?
Pharmaceutical sales is different than B2B sales. You cannot use the same sales tactics that you would if you were selling, for example, office furniture, accounting services, CRM systems, or even commercial insurance to a regular business owner or executive.