Physician Relations Sales Training
Simply having a field team does not ensure referral success. Leaders work hard to find the right people for the role, but without solid talent development the results are varied. Consistent, ongoing training creates high performers who use engaging and intentional messaging to truly connect with physicians and the practice. Our proven tools and techniques are customized for you and your team and led by a certified sales instructor.
Training Venues
- Onsite: The ideal training is offered to the full team at your location and customized to your needs. This is perfect for teams with five or more attendees
- Destination Training: The best option for a solo rep who has joined a previously trained team or for smaller teams. These sessions are offered twice a year or as needed.
- Virtual Training: If circumstances make the other options a challenge, we’ll come to you in a virtual classroom setting
Which option works best for your situation? If you have questions or would like to set up a time to talk reach out at: info@barlowmccarthy.com.
No matter how skilled or experienced, every team needs ongoing professional development to stay at the top of their game:
- Sales 101: B/Mc’s most popular session. The curriculum takes liaisons through each step in the relationship sales cycle and it is offered in a motivating, interactive way. Topics include: how to improve face-to-face interactions, gatekeeper techniques, questioning methods, good messages, managing objections and closing.
- Scenario Skill Building: Field staff learn best through interactive experience. This training promotes critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration through custom-designed scenarios that are provided by the field team. It is a highly interactive training program.
- Advanced: Your best liaisons benefit from ongoing training to enhance their field effectiveness. Advanced sessions are ideal for teams that have excelled in the Sales 101 techniques and are ready to apply innovative skills to engage with the physician and the practice. This course makes sense when the team is ready to become a consultative partner with physicians.
- Sales Planning: Taking a line from the adage, “Plan your work, work your plan,” this workshop offers step-by-step actions to craft a successful sales plan.
Leader Development Tools
Our passion is helping new and existing program leaders develop their teams and gain personal satisfaction in the role. Offerings include:
- Field Manager Intensive:From hiring to talent development and focus, this formal training session provides insights on everything the leader needs to build and maintain a high-performance field team
- Team Building:Development and exercises to promote teamwork and team-based performance
- Customized Coaching: We provide personal coaching with leaders of every level to develop the program, their skills, manage their talent or enhance their impact internally
Liaison Development Tools
B/Mc offers personalized coaching for liaisons.
- Field Ride-alongs: The physician relations rep almost always works independently with the physician audience, so the opportunity for observation is often limited. We ride along in real time to observe, coach and encourage with the goal of advancing an individual’s relationships sales performance to the next level
- Liaison Coaching: Even the best talent benefits from personalized coaching. A series of coaching sessions with the B/Mc consultant can be used for: orientation to the role, problem-solving and visit success, internal relationship strategies, or skill development. The sessions are virtual and customized to meet the current need.
- Determine how your current physician relations model aligns with best practices for the industry
- Detail the organization’s need for referral relationships, present and future state
- Explore ideas for connecting with internal and external stakeholders
- Sharpen existing strategies and define the practical process to achieve success
- Promote critical thinking about new opportunities for the physician relations team
- Develop an implementation roadmap for advancing existing and new ideas
Most healthcare leaders are not “sales” types. Effective physician relationship team members are. We are too. We help you find, hire and develop the right kind of talent for your team. Here’s how:
- Objective assessments of the existing team
- Help with hiring including: Identification of prospects, interviews, and sales skill assessment tools
- Onboarding, one-on-one coaching, ongoing training, and performance evaluations
Learn more about how we can help you develop and improve your talent on our Team Talent page.
Our Expertise
Physician Retention/Leakage
Continuity of care is a top concern for today’s healthcare leaders. Whether it’s attrition of new recruits or concerns about specialty referrals staying within the network, the ultimate goal is keepage and engagement of the right physician talent.
Physician Recruitment
Recruiting a strong pipeline of physician talent is the cornerstone of a strong hospital or medical practice. Physician recruitment teams play a critical role and high performance recruitment teams are vital to success.
Mystery Shopping
Sometimes unique challenges need a fresh set of outside eyes to unemotionally and objectively test, accurately record, and report key facts. Only then can effective solutions be developed and implemented.
From the Blog
Physician Relations Blog
Time to Find New Referral Sources?
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...
From the Trenches: Real-World Insights from Our Work with Clients
At Barlow/McCarthy, we spend our days in strategy rooms and out in the field with healthcare leaders facing real challenges and chasing real opportunities. In this post, we’ve asked our team to share quick takeaways—what’s working, what’s shifting, and what we’re...
Medicaid Cuts and the Future of Recruitment & Relations: What Now?
The following post is a collaborative response by our team regarding the article mentioned in the post. Contributors include: Allison McCarthy, Susan Boydell, Mitzi Kent and Amy Chandler. A recent article from Becker’s Hospital Review, "Proposed Medicaid cuts,...
Beyond the Referral: How to Build Lasting Physician Engagement
By: Susan Boydell | sboydell@barlowmccarthy.com Securing a physician’s referral is just the first step. The real challenge—and opportunity—lies in fostering meaningful, long-term relationships that go beyond a single patient handoff. Strong engagement isn’t built on...
Selling Smarter, Not Harder: The Role of Niche Targeting in Physician Relations
By: Susan Boydell | sboydell@barlowmccarthy.com In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, traditional sales approaches often fall short when trying to get a referring physician’s attention. Broad, one-size-fits-all messaging can fail to resonate, leading to missed...
Practice Marketing Blog
Shark-like Practice Marketing
By: Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA | kbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com When I saw this quote on LinkedIn, I just loved it. Of course in the case of practice marketing the “chase” and “bite” need to be expressed a bit differently! But if we look closely there is some wisdom here that...
6 Practice Marketing Basics that Set the Course for Success
By: Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA | kbarlow@barlowmccarthy.com Marketers can be heard moaning, “Just add it to the list…” Teams of excellent health system marketers are now up to their elbows in one-off needs of employed practices, tri-fold brochures, requests for...
Holiday Tactics in Recruitment, Relations, Marketing and Biz Dev
Being that the holiday season is here we thought that it would be an appropriate time to bring out a collection of some current and past holiday articles. It can be a challenging time to communicate with physicians as well as just getting your own work done! So check...
Doctor-Patient Relationships Rank at the Top
By: Kriss Barlow, RN, MBA I often search the web for interesting facts when I prepare talks or articles. When trolling, I found this survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. I think there are some really interesting...
The Marketing Leader in Transformation Times
By: Jeff Cowart, MAH Most seasoned hospital and healthcare marketers today were bred in a world where product marketing was the gold standard, and metrics...
Referrals are only the beginning of the story.
If you’re ready to understand what happens after the referral is made and how it impacts access, retention, and revenue, our consultants would welcome the conversation.