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.