Doctors do not prescribe from your detail aid. They prescribe from the guideline in their head.
Many reps treat treatment guidelines as someone else's business, something for medical affairs. That is a mistake. The rep who speaks the guideline's language is finally having the same conversation as the doctor.
The four steps I coach:
- 1. Know the guideline. Read the current version for your therapy area, not a summary. Know which edition your doctor follows.
- 2. Find your place. Which line of treatment, which patient, which step. Be exact, and never stretch it.
- 3. Speak its language. "For patients not at target on first-line treatment, Doctor..." Now you sound like his world, not a brochure.
- 4. Link it to his patient. Connect the recommendation to a patient type he sees every week.
Step three changes the tone of the call. The doctor stops hearing a pitch and starts hearing a colleague who understands how he decides.
One warning: never claim the guideline says more about your product than it does. He has read it too.
“Do not sell against the guideline. Sell inside it.”
Lesson 9 of 11 in Step 3: Knowing the science, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.