At its core, business acumen is about understanding how your company or your customers make money. Business acumen is also about understanding what information is used by your accounts when making critical decisions. A suggested framework for applying business acumen is as follows: Gather relevant organizational and marketplace data to understand the current situation Ask […]
How to Thrive During Difficult Times: Lessons Learned with Laurie Cooke
As we progress through Women’s History Month, we at WLH are continuing to shine a spotlight on the women who have changed and thrived throughout the turmoil of this past year. Women leaders around the world have demonstrated their capacity to adapt and lead through these challenging times with strength and empathy. In fact, one […]
Customer Re-engagement: What is the same and what is different?
The Covid-19 Pandemic has and continues to significantly disrupt healthcare delivery. Around the country, the return of elective procedures and the re-opening of healthcare practices remains variable. Even as these practices re-open for patients, many locations are limiting or excluding industry access. Personal, face-to-face interactions are limited in some areas, are not taking place at […]
Creating Account Managers: Building an Internal Bench
To win in the marketplace, Life Sciences companies must effectively achieve results and develop access with large organized customers – whether they are larger integrated hospital systems or regional/national payers. Leading the charge for customer engagement efforts are Account Managers (AMs). The same skills that make someone a successful sales representative, or even a district […]
Culture of Collaboration: Challenges and Best Practices for Account Team Collaboration
According to the Institute for Corporate Productivity, more than two-thirds of organizations include “collaboration” as one of their core values. Collaboration is not just a luxury within an organization. Research indicates that collaboration correlates with higher levels of market performance, leadership effectiveness, innovation, and creativity. As the healthcare marketplace continues to consolidate with larger organized […]
Account Management Training for Specialty Drugs
Specialty drugs are one of the fastest-growing segments in the pharmaceutical industry. Innovative therapies can support patient care and yield far better outcomes. However, even with improved outcomes, there is added scrutiny by payers to contain costs and ensure proper utilization. Learning and development professionals supporting dedicated specialty pharmaceutical companies or divisions within larger global […]
Key Account Organizational Diagnosis to Improve Field Force Effectiveness
A large animal health company sought to understand why there was huge variability in performance with its key account teams throughout the US. The client asked WLH to identify the root causes and provide recommendations for further action planning.
Defining an Account Management Strategy for Life Science Companies
Many life sciences companies have become increasingly more reliant on account executives to target large, complicated healthcare systems and payers. These sales professionals are on the front line attempting to bring innovative solutions to large organized customers and are tasked with calling on C-suite and Director-level stakeholders to uncover needs, identify systems’ level opportunities, and […]
Coaching Account Management Skills
Field leaders who are responsible for directing sales, reimbursement, and medical teams face a greater need to “expand their toolkit” in order to provide useful coaching to team members on their account management skills. Today, customer-facing roles need more knowledge about evolving business models, the managed care environment, and the ever present pressures to increase […]
Connecting the Dots: 10 Lessons Learned for Creating an Account Management Mindset
Have you noticed that your customer-facing employees have a more difficult time “connecting the dots” when executing against larger organized customers? This idiom describes one’s ability to understand the relationship between different ideas, experiences, and trends and is critical to strategic planning and effective field force execution. Life sciences leaders and learning organizations are becoming […]