Diagnosis
You're using your detail pieces, but they don't seem to be effective

Prescription
Study your materials, and understand all the data, to get the most out of them

Maria can still recall her very first call as a sales professional for a major pharmaceutical company. "I had been through weeks of training; I had practiced until I knew precisely what to say. Plus, I had a pharmacy degree. I felt I knew the drugs, the studies and the disease state. I was ready and enthusiastic," she said. Now an experienced and very successful leader in her district, Maria's manager often calls on her to mentor colleagues on leveraging promotional pieces and studies in sales calls. She says that what she learned on that first call taught her a lot about using promotional pieces. "That first call was awkward. It was just too much. I was like a robot with a pre-recorded call as I flipped through the pages of the brochure. I had so many points to make and there was so much information in the brochure that I just kept talking. I didn't listen at all," she recalls. "I was tempted to leave the promotional piece in my trunk for the next call. I figured it was the problem. It wasn't, though. It was the way I was using it," she reflects. Now she uses promotional pieces and studies on nearly every call and teaches her colleagues how to do it as well. The promotional pieces her company provides allow her the flexibility to grab a physician's attention, focus on a targeted point, answer questions and tie her drugs' benefits back to the patients. "The materials are super tools when you use them strategically!" Maria tells her colleagues. Here are some of her best practices for making sure promotional pieces make it out of the trunk to lead physicians into a focused conversation.

The very first step to using the materials effectively is to study them – even the six-point footnotes and endnotes. As you read through the materials and study the graphics, ask yourself, "If a physician asks me where this information comes from, can I quickly and correctly answer him or her?" Physicians realize a promotional piece is a marketing tool and they can resist them for that very reason. You will want to illustrate how the data in the material is derived from valid and credible sources. Many times the information is from a study you will have in your bag or in your hands. It may also be pooled from several studies or from data on file at the company. Sometimes the data comes directly from disease state treatment guidelines.

When you know where the information in the promotional pieces comes from, you can use it to launch into a clinical conversation that goes beyond glossy graphs. A bar graph that shows your drug's efficacy in four colors may grab the physician's attention. You can keep it, though, and build your credibility, when you say, "Doctor, this data is from a meta-analysis of eight randomized, controlled studies." Maria says that she thinks of the promotional literature as the headline. She uses it to grab attention and create a visual impression as she leads into the clinical evidence. To do this, she targets one piece of information she wants to present to the physician. Using this approach she begins with the supporting evidence or study then navigates to the corresponding page in the promotional literature to leave a visual impression. Or, conversely, she may begin with the selected page in the promotional piece as a "headline" and move to the study.

Depending on the information you have selected to use and the individual preferences of the physicians you call on, you can try either approach, meaning using the study first or the promotional material first then navigating to the other piece. This requires a thorough knowledge of how the various promotional pieces and studies are related. Data may be reported, for example, as a table in a study then relevant statistics may be pulled from the table and illustrated as a graph in the promotional literature. You will want to be able to answer physician questions regarding the graph and the table. This demonstrates to the physician that you have not memorized the information; you know it. Using promotional materials and clinical evidence in tandem is what makes your calls especially effective.