Rule 29 Sharing Best Practices - Third Party Stories
If you happened to have missed the opportunity to be a pharmaceutical
representative in the late 90s, or you have never gone on YouTube to
avail yourself of Charles Charles: Pharmaceutical Representative, let me
encourage you to watch it. Pay careful attention to the segment on sharing
best practices.
I did not miss the opportunity to be a pharma rep, and at times, life in
pharma was painfully like the comic parody of Charles Charles. I really did
work with a person who was a real-life rendition of Charles Charles. Sharing
best practices was a contest you could win by submitting voicemail
summaries of a recent success. Many of those stories were embarrassingly
self-serving at times. This is the extreme example, however, so please set
that aside and acknowledge that hearing of the success or failure of others
is extremely helpful.
More importantly, we all need third-party references, especially with
champions. As I said earlier, champions pose an unusual challenge in that
we are not attempting to convince them of the concept behind our solution.
Instead, we are attempting to persuade them to accept the concept of
a bright and exciting future that doesn’t exist yet, where their sales volumes
are dramatically higher thanks to us. We pointed out that few champions
are innovators who will boldly go first. But somewhere, a champion innovator
is out there—probably in someone else’s territory. You need the
power of their story to move the champion in your territory.
Is tooting your own horn the fastest way to lose credibility with your
peers? Yes, if your leadership team has not created an insight-based environment
of humbly sharing best practices. If those stories are shared with
a focus on the insights to be gleaned—and if the attempt is legitimately
made to help others and not puff yourself up—it does not have to be
painful or self-serving balderdash. We need your success stories to use
with our customers as third-party references of actual occurrences that
should inspire and motivate our customers.
110 | J A SON ELMORE
If your company leadership has not found creative ways to encourage credible,
helpful sharing, then you are the loser. So don’t wait for them. Figure
it out yourself and be the catalyst for cross-pollination in your
organization.
Elite execution demands the sharing of best practices.