First Things First....

Our last Prescription for Success, ‘Face the Music’, focused on the importance of fine tuning your sales process to the issue of ‘vendor customer relations’. ‘First Things First’ will dig a little deeper into a customer issue that will tax your sales team as it approaches the critically important subject of the Clinical Information System (CIS). Follow our prescription to get this top level customer priority straight and you’ll be well on the way to opening up many opportunities in the healthcare enterprise. And there is no better subject for the kind of consultative selling that is a ‘must’ for your sales team.

We’re taking our cue from a fine piece, ‘Total Transformation’, published in the November, 2003, HealthLeaders.com. Here you’ll find the kind of argument that TDG has been making for a long time: the key to any success with healthcare customers is knowing their organizational, cultural, human and customer needs before laying on a technology solution. Once you’ve done that you can understand the critical workflow needs that define the nuts and bolts of a CIS. Here are some main points from this report, which highlights the experience of MemorialCare Medical Centers in Long Beach, California:

• “Find ways to standardize your work flows and procedures so that they’re easy to computerize.

• Get clinicians cooperating to improve healthcare delivery; get them out of silos and into a culture “where caregivers work together
  

• Make sure there is an investment in simulating and testing systems before putting them to real world work\

• Make sure that understanding of workflow is part of the vendor selection process

• Require vendors to adapt their systems to CIS workflow requirements and not vice versa

• Work with physicians to develop and follow system maps, contributing their patients data to effectiveness studies.

What does this mean in terms of the resources and processes available to front line sales and marketing teams and tie them into all phases of your sales cycle --- from identifying and qualifying customers, to closing them.

• Do you understand how to apply the concept of workflow to healthcare settings? In other words, is your knowledge truly healthcare specific? This could be a major issue for teams that sell into many environments, or are new to healthcare.

• Have you fully prepared your team to understand the clinician/physician culture so that you can talk to them sensitively and sensibly about the improvement of caregiver services? And, can you truly interpret what they are saying to you, being fully prepared to take off your rose colored glasses to understand both the opportunities and barriers which affect success?

• Can you and your company make a positive contribution (human resources, technology) customer r&d efforts, including simulation, testing and determining ROI for the tested CIS?   Can you persuade your customer that t his is a reason to buy from you? Do you know how to turn this into a positive in your sales efforts as part of a proposal? 
  

• Are you well armed with healthcare success stories that truly reflect your customer’s philosophy of starting with organizational and work issues? Can you use this to show your commitment to healthcare

• Are your sales partners fully attuned to your philosophy? Do your partners and customers share your vision?
  

• Can you track your CIS efforts against the sales cycle, understanding how to identify, qualify, excite, sell to and keep customers? Can you highlight your commitment to all phases of sales cycle to your customers? Do you have readily available informational and reporting tools to help in this effort? 
  

There’s a lot more to this story and TDG is ready to help you learn it to meet your needs. We can provide the research as well as sales development and education tools -- all the way through the sales cycle -- that help get and satisfy customers in healthcare and other industries. Our experience with Dell, Compaq, HP, Data General and many industry leaders, as well as with some of America’s finest health systems and universities, has given us a wealth of information and tools that can help you get your priorities aligned with the stars for your success, and the success of your customers.

For general information on TDG research and tool development contact Ron Goodenow and take a look at our Net/Bridge Market Empowerment Products for Healthcare  page. For sales specific information and feedback contact Ed Deppert, TDG's senior consultant and sales expert. We want to thank Ed for his ideas for TDG's Prescription for Success.

Don't forget to read 'Face the Music', our Rx for success in vendor-customer relations.

Click here to read 'Total Transformation', the Healthleaders.com article we reference above.

We welcome your input. If you are interested in sharing your ideas let us know. And, be sure to distribute Prescription for Success to your associates.

Please e-mail Ron Goodenow or call 508-393-5619 so we can help you.