By: Susan Boydell | sboydell@barlowmccarthy.com
Organizations that hire top talent are 30% more profitable. -Gallup Poll, 2016
One thing we know in physician relations is that success is highly driven by the strength of the field talent. We often say the basic must-haves for field effectiveness include a deep understanding of the clinical products and services the organization has targeted for growth and team members who can sell.
Both are still must-haves for today, but the bar has been raised and those skills alone are sometimes not enough. Most organizations now look for those who have a strategic approach to growing the business. A strategic approach includes everything from an individual’s ability to analyze data to how they use strategic intelligence from the field to identify new opportunities for growth.
Here’s the catch; everyone is looking for those seasoned professionals who have the genuine talent and desired competencies to provide high value to the physician customer and the organization. Hiring the right talent is now more important than ever and is more difficult than it ever was before.
Here are a few tips to help you attract and retain top-performing field talent:
- Write a compelling job posting. Read your job posting as if you were a potential candidate. Start with the title of your position. So often, our internal titles are not relevant for the external world. Make sure the title closely matches what the actual position is and how potential applicants might search for your openings. The next most important part of your posting is the opening paragraph. This paragraph should include four to five specific details that best describe this job. Make sure they are the most important and make them interesting.
- Get diligent about your job postings. Don’t leave this solely up to your HR department. Identification and recruitment of sales talent is usually not the department’s strongest skill. Use your own networks like LinkedIn and/or career boards for professional health care organizations. BONUS: many of these are free.
- Create an applicant screening process. The resume is only a piece of paper that tells you about the applicant’s experience and credentials. It can’t tell you about their character, their personality or their ability to actually do the job. Review their resume to make sure they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Consider doing a phone interview as a next step to answer any questions based on their resume and determine if they are a good fit to move forward to an in person interview. It’s also important to determine salary requirements up front. Hospital/health system compensation packages are often not as lucrative as working for a true sales-driven organization. Make sure HR screens for salary requirements up front.
- Skill first. Fit second. As mentioned earlier, field talent must to have solid selling skills or natural sales aptitude to even be considered. A good starting point is to use SalesMax – a online tool that assesses field talent’s natural ability to be successful in a sales role. We offer the tool through Barlow/McCarthy and have had great success with the insights it provides. Email Tony at tbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com for details on SalesMax.
- Refine your interview skills. Think about an applicant interview the same you would a sales call; it’s about you uncovering their ability to do the job and whether they are a good fit for your organization. You should only be talking about 30 percent of the time and the majority of that time is asking good questions. To truly understand their sales approach consider asking the candidate to share an example of a specific sales call experience. For example, “Can you share an example of when you were faced with a tough gatekeeper and what you did to overcome the road block?” You can also ask them to share examples of when they weren’t successful, what they did, what happened and what would they do different.
- Use your brand. Great sales people want to work for great companies. Highlight why your organization is a great place to work. I know you can sell your organization!
Talented sales experts are sought after and finding them will continue to be challenge as the role of physician relations matures. Make sure you are putting your best foot forward to attract the best talent your organization deserves.
I would love to chat with you more about your specific challenges in finding good sales talent. Send me an email and we can discuss more sboydell@barlowmccarthy.com.