Tailor-made selling

30th January 2016 |   Journal Of Sales Transformation

Victoria Williams

Victoria Williams is Vice President and Sales Director at GSK. She describes the transformation that has occurred in pharmaceutical sales and urges women to put themselves forward and avoid over-questioning their capabilities.

Selling has changed vastly in the past 20 years with the emphasis now on value. If I compare today to when I was a medical representative in Nottingham, UK, in 2000, there are some major differences. The main driver has been that access to our customers, including doctors, has become more and more difficult and limited. A medical representative in the pharmaceutical industry used to be focused on “delivering” three key messages almost like an advert.

Our environment has changed; in order to gain access to our customers we need to bring more value during that interaction to justify spending time with us. Our selling needs to be focused on identifying our customers’ needs and then tailoring communication of the benefits of our medicines to meet this need.

We also have a need to be more transparent in discussing key contra-indications and side effects that must be considered. Overall, at GSK the sales process has become more patient-focused so it can bring more value to the day-to day work of our doctors and is more transparent.