By: Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA | kbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com
Physician relations teams typically spend their time with providers who already refer to your organization. Historically, that made the most sense- it was the chance to earn more from those who already had a relationship with you. Beyond that core group, are you dedicating scheduled time and attention to physicians that could refer to you but don’t? Many organizations recognize they have a shrinking splitter audience. As you look for opportunities, active prospecting for new markets or niche referrals might be just the ticket.
Start with a two-fold internal look. First, evaluate the real business potential- the cost benefit side of the equation by starting with data. Focus on those who have referred once or twice, former referrers who are not, non-referrers in your target geography, those with relevant patients and those with a pattern of limited loyalty to other providers. Make sure you are able to match up with their payor affinity and that you have access for a few of the most popular specialties. Last but not least, evaluate the “take strategy.” Do you have enough differentiation to move them to you? Assuming this all looks good, let’s dig into the process to get the field team ready for action.
Next, determine the current field staff’s prospecting capabilities. Start with the data side and add a percent of prospects to the target list. To start, maybe it is 5% or 10%. These are doctors they have not called on before; those who are new to their target list because of your analytic process.
Recognize that prospecting/cold calling, is a different skill set. Many field reps will be hesitant… that’s putting it mildly! Prospecting reluctance generally happens for one of three reasons.
- Effort for impact. Field staff want to know their efforts will lead to results. Prospecting is difficult and moving a new lead forward takes time. It’s easy to say, “I’ll have better success with existing relationships…“ or “They are not going to try us….” Staff who believe this likely won’t try very hard. Here are a few thoughts to elevate that attitude.
- Give a runway for prospecting success. Outline the steps for prospecting and let them know how it works. Make sure they know how to alter their approach for a practice that does not often use you. Start with pure discovery visits that allow each member of the field team to bring back learnings and perceptions after the first few prospecting visits.
- Set realistic expectations for working with new prospects. Call them out in a separate category and let the team know they are measured separately for this.
- Feeling valued. Many team members do this job because they like the relationships and that is lacking with new prospects. They might say, or at least believe that “Prospecting is hard, lonely, full of rejection and not worth it.” The bottom line is that they may believe that they are not very good at it, or that they don’t really know how to do it.
- Help them with skills. Take the time to talk about ways to start these conversations. Use team meeting time to focus on what’s working for prospects and make certain everyone shares ideas.
- Let their creativity flow. Encourage them to try new ways to start conversations and then to share scripts that worked with other team members.
- Measure steps toward progress. Find new ways to measure the activity side of the workflow. It might be provider visits or new intelligence learned.
- Quantify intelligence. The maximum expectation is a new referral stream. The minimum expectation is that the health system gets smarter about the market, the competition and needs/expectations of the referring physician audience.
- Proactively capture intelligence. Field staff can ask a question or two of the staff and/or doctors. They can also provide key observations like hours, number of providers, how busy the practice is… you get it!
- Provide prospect intelligence reports. Leverage the impact of prospecting through a call-out on your report. Explain the strategy, the actions and define learnings.
Why let good offerings go unnoticed? Take the plunge and do some prospecting. While we always encourage you to start small, for some teams, as the market dynamics change, the need to prospect is very real. Don’t wait to understand the process, test it while you have a window. And if you want to chat about it, please just ask! You can email me at info@barlowmccarthy.com.