Everybody Hates Pharma

Ep.24-Audio
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Pharma Sales and Tech Podcast. Join Artem, Stefan, Ruslan, and Chris as we explore the latest trends and developments in the pharmaceutical industry with a focus on sales and technology from cutting edge innovations To practical tips and strategies, our expert guests will provide valuable insights to help you stay ahead of the game.

[00:00:30] Tune in to stay informed, inspired, and connected with the world of pharma sales.

[00:00:38] Stefan: Hello ladies and gentlemen today is a special day because I'm very happy to announce we have a new guest on the sales Pharma and tech podcast which by the way is going to change its name. We're going to be very soon. We're going we're starting our new Season two you would say and that's why we're changing the name.

[00:00:56] Stefan: We're going to be "Everybody Hates Pharma", [00:01:00] It's more funky name and then our audience our listeners like it more. So we decided to pitch a little bit. But no matter what we have a great guest today. My name is Stefan I work for Platforce And our guest today. His name is Ranjit And he is a startup founder.

[00:01:18] Stefan: Actually. He's a co founder in the company and where they deal with with physical products and they work with the Pharma, but I am pretty sure that Ranjit Mishra Can make his own intro. Ranjit, welcome into the studio and tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:36] Ranjeet Mishra: Oh, thank you so much, Stefan, for this opportunity. So I'll quickly kind of introduce to your audience about my profile. So I am all in all a life science veteran. I have worked with pharmaceutical company over here in India. Last part of my experience has been with multinationals and then at some point of time back in 2018, I [00:02:00] thought about. Taking a plunge into entrepreneurial journey and that's where the formation of this very company, GoodHums, happened, which I'm currently leading. So, so that's, that's been my experience. I have worked in sales functions, I've worked in marketing, and I've handled the P& L of the companies. So, quite an enrich and diverse experience I had.

[00:02:22] Stefan: Can you tell a little bit like about your current company and how do you guys help save the world?

[00:02:26] Ranjeet Mishra: Thanks for asking that. So our current companies. Our, typically a life science company, which deals into medicines and a point of care diagnostics. The idea behind this company was how do we help you know, physicians to improve the treatment outcome and that by ensuring that, you know, the treatment of the patient happens on a sharp diagnostics, okay.

[00:02:53] Ranjeet Mishra: And not only on gut feeling. Sorry to say, because of lack of infrastructure or skill, [00:03:00] as you go down into the semi urban and developed rural market of India, you would see that physicians largely treat patients based on their gut feeling, because the access to pathology or the diagnostics are limited.

[00:03:13] Ranjeet Mishra: So our idea was to kind of help them with the point of care testing, and then allow them to kind of have a better You know, diagnostics and and then decide the right treatment line. So that's what we are doing. The core to everything we do is how do we improve the treatment outcome for the patients?

[00:03:33] Stefan: Awesome. Cool. So since this is a podcast about like the tech advancement advancements and sales, I'd like to ask you, so what is maybe a specific example of a successful sales strategy that you've done? Implemented in the past or maybe this year.

[00:03:51] Ranjeet Mishra: Right. Interesting question. So you know, since I have roughly around 22 years of experience, there are quite a few examples I can think [00:04:00] of about sales strategies. But the one which is, which is kind of staying top of my mind is about, see, if you look at the Indian market, it's a very fragmented market, unlike Western world, where you have every molecule, probably one brand, patented brand. That's not the case over here in India. So you will have for one molecule, roughly around 50, 60 brands. I mean, in, in, in the conservative case, I'm saying, and it goes even beyond a hundred and, and a company will have, I mean, I'm saying a company like ours. We have not less than 40 50 product, which a medical representative will be taking to the, you know, healthcare professional.

[00:04:41] Ranjeet Mishra: So, so the challenge over here is about how do you ensure that they get the product and customer mix right? Okay. And, and, and also ensure that they're doing the multiple product selling. So So the idea with which we came in, in terms of [00:05:00] ensuring a better profiling segmentation and targeting was a concept called brand per doctor, so that you know that how many users you have for every brand.

[00:05:09] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. And based on that, you know, you kind of benchmark yourself to you, you say that, okay, I have, you know, only two brands for a doctor. Okay. So then you say that you have a leg room to increase it to three, four, five. Because typically you will have industry benchmarks, say, if the industry benchmark is five brand per doctor and you are at two, then you know that you have leg room for three more kind of thing. and and then you use from there your own profiling to ensure that which are the brands we will, I would like to allocate to this doctor. So, so that concept of ensuring that our representatives are doing the multiple product selling and doing it by a method of concepts like brand per doctor it was pretty useful even in this company and an earlier company as well, I have used.

[00:05:59] Ranjeet Mishra: So that's [00:06:00] one which, which is coming to my mind as a very successful sales strategy, which was implemented.

[00:06:06] Stefan: Interesting. Okay. So how do you, with your strategies, how do you stay on top of the like latest industry trends, technology advancements, some might say ChatGPT-4, in order to stay competitive in the field.

[00:06:22] Ranjeet Mishra: Yeah. Again. So I think one of the strong realization I have, and I'm sure everybody in the industry would have is in terms of information and knowledge, there's a vast revolution or transformation we are going through. So Gone are the era where you would be dependent on that if knowledge is administered, then only you will have it. Now you just need to be inquisitive. If you are inquisitive, there are enough platforms, tools web portals available where you can go and fix the information. So, my practices are around that. So, there are, there are domains, theme I will [00:07:00] pick up, and then I ensure that I have enough access. In terms of all these web portals where I can go and keep checking about what's happening there in terms of new technology. One of the platform which, which I genuinely like and I'm kind of benefited is, is something like LinkedIn. iF you have the right connections, you will continuously get fed with new information, new technology, new advancement. So, and those, those are, you know, really helpful. Other than that, the conventional method is still continues to be very effective.

[00:07:35] Ranjeet Mishra: So keeping in touch with your industry friend, you know, reaching out to people from diverse fields, having, you know, occasional conversation with them, checking with them, what is happening does help. So I guess, you get adequately informed about what's happening in the industry. What are the recent advancements.

[00:07:55] Stefan: Gotcha. Okay. And how do you use data and Linux to inform and [00:08:00] improve your like sales efforts?

[00:08:02] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. I personally, I'm a very firm believer of data. I think while in India, you know, we have a struggle in terms of brick level data. That's one of our challenges, you know, the data on customer you know, uses or competition is, is not that, you know, granular, but then I still believe there are enough data.

[00:08:23] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. And so I, I love using data in terms of arriving at. What are the insights in the market? What are the trends? Okay. How do you benchmark yourself? Okay, so for example, a company like ours, which is a start, how do we kind of compare ourselves to the right set of companies, you know, how they're progressing, what is the growth trajectory kind of things. The other one is a user data in terms of sales analytics, arriving at performance. Measurement of the territories of people kind of thing. So, [00:09:00] so a lot of them are really helpful in terms of making very sharp and informed decisions. Okay. So data that way is very important in improving yourselves and ensuring your growth trajectories really accelerated.

[00:09:15] Stefan: Okay and so in in this time, like it's it's been 2023 it's been rough like, how do you Manage like customer relationships in this industry because you you cannot give gifts to doctors. You can't you know They basically bribe them So, how can you how can do you nurture the relationships with your customers both on the HCP side and on the farmer side?

[00:09:38] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. Yeah, that you're right. It's becoming challenging. Okay. The whole landscape is evolving. Okay. The relationship of pharmaceutical company or life science company with healthcare professional is under consistent scrutiny. Okay. And you have to be you know, really vigilant to ensure that you're not seen in the bad light.

[00:09:59] Ranjeet Mishra: So that's, [00:10:00] that's been the challenge. Okay. But having said that, I also very strongly believe that this is an industry which is a relationship driven industry. Still, if you ask me in India, one of the reason the doctors would prefer a brand A over brand B amongst various other attributes would be one of that is how good the local representative's relationship is with that healthcare professional.

[00:10:25] Ranjeet Mishra: So building relationship, maintaining relationship is very, very important to the business. The way we do is, is ensuring that your customer connect is very updated. You're out there in the field, meeting customers, sharing new information with them, understanding their preferences. And that's what, as I said, the profiling is very important.

[00:10:45] Ranjeet Mishra: So you can have quantitative profiling. You can have psychographic profiling of the customer knowing who likes what. I mean, there are customers who like scientific conversations a lot. Okay. There are customers probably who would like. May not be scientific [00:11:00] conversation, but latest trend, you know, what's happening, happening in the industry kind of thing. We, I still believe that while we are evolving and there is enough in form of access to information for healthcare professional, but they still kind of rely upon the pharma companies representative on scientific information, product information. So how, how are you really agile? And nimble footed in terms of ensuring if there are inquiries, you serve it faster than anybody else. So those are the ways where you kind of build customer relationships. And then there are platforms like scientific conferences, you travel them, you get some informal time to spend with them, you know, during the conference. So like those are the time when they're out of their clinics, not that busy, you catch them slightly casually, and that becomes a good, good. Opportunity to kind of build relationships. So these are the means actually where, we focus on building customer relationships.[00:12:00]

[00:12:01] Stefan: Interesting. That's a good approach. I think I would say, what sort of challenges have you faced, let's say in the past years with your sales process and how did you overcome them?

[00:12:14] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. So in terms of sales process you know, one of the challenges which I have personally faced, and again, I'm saying it may not be common to all kind of things and as a startup is the attrition bit. Okay. So we see a very high attrition rate, company like us, which is a small, still building up. And the young generation, the Generation G is very aspirational.

[00:12:40] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. So they're not going to stick around and wait and see that. Okay. The company is one day will be a big size company. I'll be, I'll be benefited out of proportions in terms of my career, progression or monetary this thing. So holding them back to the companies is a real challenge. And if you ask me, that's been the biggest challenge in [00:13:00] my. And we realized it very fast and addressing that was, the core priority for me. So we came up with a few ideas, like, you know, how do we kind of ensure that, you know, the monetary benefits, their engagement with the company, their career aspirations are being met in a very structured manner.

[00:13:20] Ranjeet Mishra: So I would say that, one of the things which we were doing and which is very unlike a company like ours. is we announced that, two Saturdays of the month will be off for them. Now I say this because this is a very uncommon, this is a common practice among the multinationals. Okay, in India and obviously, you know, in Western countries, it would be that Saturdays are normally off.

[00:13:44] Ranjeet Mishra: Over here as well, Saturdays for field staff, I'm saying, in some of the companies, it's not off. For some of the companies, first or third Saturday is off kind of thing. So we chose two Saturdays of the month will be off. This is to ensure that they have a better work life balance, [00:14:00] okay? So, and that was the idea that how do we ensure that employee finds that their concerns are being addressed, their work life balance is being maintained in the company, and their earning prospects also is very bright kind of thing.

[00:14:16] Ranjeet Mishra: So those were a few measures which we took in terms of addressing the employee attrition. We got some success but I won't say that entire success.

[00:14:25] Stefan: So I have a question for you. Do you, do you have medical reps who work for your company?

[00:14:30] Ranjeet Mishra: Yes. Yes. Medical rep.

[00:14:33] Stefan: You know, I've been working now with Pharma. I'm seeing a lot of companies have issues when they have to train medical, like new sales reps for, new sales force. And I have a question, like, is there any specific way how you train your sales reps and you will prepare them for success in the industry?

[00:14:54] Ranjeet Mishra: Yeah, I think that's very important. As much as I spoke earlier about [00:15:00] the attrition being one of our business challenges. You know, the attrition is also driven by the fact that how well an employee, new employee is inducted in the company. The impression they form in the earlier days of their stay in the organization is the impression which largely stays with them.

[00:15:15] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. So having a very robust structured. Induction and onboarding program is very, very critical. Okay. This is something which I've learned in my multinational company's estate that you need to focus and you need to very strongly focus that there are right experiences happening for your new employee right at the beginning. So, you know, typically while we focus on product training, we train around Skill set. Okay. Sales skill and all these things. What we also focus that the employee gets a very good view on what are the company policies? What is going to be their career path? You know, if you stay there for three years, five years kind of thing.[00:16:00] Make them look at the success stories within the organization. Somebody who had a very fast track career record kind of thing. Okay. The other thing was, It's not the one single intervention with which we stop. So what we do is we create a milestone like three months, six months. Okay. And the job of the HR would be that with these employees, they stay apart from the line manager.

[00:16:25] Ranjeet Mishra: They stay in consistent touch. So like three months, what has gone well? What are their experiences? Are there issues they are facing in the field kind of thing? So they get a kind of sense that, okay, beyond my line manager, there's somebody. Back in head office who is also kind of overlooking. How's my stay going on kind of thing? So these are these are the ways where we Ensure that employees are inducted very well on boarded very well and and that onboarding is not just the first week, [00:17:00] but probably the first six months in the organization

[00:17:03] Stefan: Interesting. Okay. That's a good input. Thank you. You mentioned that you're using LinkedIn a lot to LinkedIn is something that brings you a lot of information about the latest technologies in the field and basically new tools, I guess. Is there anything else that you use to stay up to date to latest like sales technologies or latest stuff, latest, like knowledge, how you can improve your sales efficiency?

[00:17:27] Ranjeet Mishra: Yeah, I have subscribed to many of these information provider or consultancy you know, company. So I'm like, I have McKinsey on my phone. Okay. So I kind of keep reading from them. Right. then there are other channels as well, like McKinsey. I'm not able to recall the other ones, but there are quite a few, which, which I kind of access.

[00:17:51] Ranjeet Mishra: I have BCG as well. There are quite a few which I follow on X, the earlier which was called Twitter. So I am, [00:18:00] I'm following a lot of people who are health tech experts. Okay. A lot of people who are startup veterans kind of thing. And So, so that helps me to get a lot of these feeds of what are the recent advancement happening and, to keep myself updated with these promises.

[00:18:19] Stefan: Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. I have a few questions more to ask you. One of them is,

[00:18:24] Ranjeet Mishra: Please go ahead.

[00:18:25] Stefan: have you used ChatGPT? And what's your input on ChatGPT in pharma?

[00:18:31] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay, so I'll be very honest here. Haven't been very, you know, I wouldn't say my teeth is absolutely into the flesh. My knowledge about chat GPT is slightly limited, but yes, because I, as I said that I'm a lot of these forums and I keep reading. So I guess chatGPT would have a lot of role in the healthcare space because the kind of technology shift which it brings. The [00:19:00] enabling which it does, okay apart from the human skills is something which is pretty much required in the healthcare space kind of thing. So let's say, as I was talking about diagnosis being one of the space where you know, we have yet not achieved I would say significant progress, at least here in India. So things like ChatGPT would enable the healthcare professionals or even the life science companies, professionals to kind of. Do a much better job. Okay. Get better assisted beyond their limit, beyond their capability. So it's, so another view I have is unlike a lot of other contrarian view like, AI or machine learning or ChatGPT is going to replace a lot of jobs.

[00:19:41] Ranjeet Mishra: I have my take is probably that won't happen because even these tools have to be used with the human skill and knowledge kind of thing. They work best. If they're assisted or commanded by the human skills and intervention, so, but yeah, I haven't [00:20:00] read in deep and probably would not be able to comment beyond this.

[00:20:03] Ranjeet Mishra: So

[00:20:04] Stefan: Aren't you afraid of like data leakage? You know that there, a lot of companies are not using it because they say, okay, ChatGPT has a data pool and they're going to use this knowledge That you provide them they're going to all your competitors will know about it Well, if they're using chatgpt, aren't you?

[00:20:22] Stefan: When aren't you afraid of that? It's a common. It's a common doubt actually in the pharma industry

[00:20:27] Ranjeet Mishra: my answer is yes, I won't say I'm afraid, but I think that's a vacant space, which I need to fulfill. Okay. I understand. So we also need to understand a lot of these things. These are just unfolding. Okay. We have yet not there are speculations around how impactful they would be, but we have not yet seen the full blown impact.

[00:20:51] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. I mean, even outside of ChatGPT, let's talk about AI and all these things. What we have seen is we have seen their [00:21:00] importance. We have seen their significance, but yet we have not seen the full blown impact kind of thing. So we are into a phase where a lot of things are like yet to be seen kind of for example, ChatGPT, at least whatever view, limited view I have, in my business, I have yet not seen any full blown impact. I'm not seeing any of my competitors getting a real edge over me by using ChatGPT. Okay. But having said that, I think, you know, we have to be open to this thing. We have to be really on top of it, understanding how you can have the first mover advantage in these spaces.

[00:21:37] Ranjeet Mishra: Thank So that's the opportunity. Take the first mover advantage, be the lead in using technology. And that kind of then enables you to be a step ahead of your competition.

[00:21:48] Stefan: Make sense Okay, so I have my last question here. If you had to give some advice to pharma companies What that advice sound like?

[00:21:59] Ranjeet Mishra: Oh, [00:22:00] that's a big question. Large questions. But yes, I'll surely attempt to answer that is first of all, my advice would be in context of, I mean, I'm saying operational side in the domestic market, India. But as a season, Pharma professional, probably it goes to anybody in the world kind of thing.

[00:22:19] Ranjeet Mishra: Is So one is in your business, the fulcrum is people. Okay. So how do you ensure that you know, people are taken care of in the way they would like to be and ensure that they have longer stay in your company and not only longer stay? How do you ensure that they, they're really fast paced in terms of learning? Updated with new technology, advancement kind of thing, managing customer relationship is very pivotal to your success. Okay. That's number one. Number two is about how fast you are in terms of reading the technological advancement, embracing [00:23:00] them, bringing them in your company and using them to get an edge over your competition will also decide not about your longevity, but also about your success.

[00:23:09] Ranjeet Mishra: Okay. So. Classical cases, as you said, chatGPT or AI, how much of that is, you know, relevant to your practice, your business, understanding that. So that's, point two about technology and advancement. Third is the, about, your sales efficiency how do you ensure that you have very soft profiling, customer segmentation and targeting so that you ensure you have the maximum bang for the buck. I think in a very fragmented market like India, that becomes a very important imperative. You know, if you have sharp profiling of the customer and thereby segmentation and targeting, your success rate would go up much more than what you can expect. Okay. And fourth would be, again, in the context of business, I'm saying is product [00:24:00] development identifying new products. Okay, your pipeline, sales pipeline, how enriched that is because the domestic player would not have R& D facilities, I'm saying smaller player like us, but it's ensuring that what's new happening, what are the new launches happening, how can you sniff those opportunity faster than your competitor, again will give you edge. These are the four things I would say that would be very important and crucial for the success in a market like India.

[00:24:31] Stefan: Thank you for your advice. It was awesome I had a great pleasure actually meeting you on this podcast and I usually ask my guests to be ready to be called again to the podcast in one year because you might have you certainly will have new experience, new strategies, new sales tactics, and information that you can share with us and more important about listeners because we are doing this show for our listeners.

[00:24:54] Stefan: So thank you for your wonderful interview and I wish you good luck with your company.

[00:24:59] Ranjeet Mishra: Thank you. [00:25:00] Thank you, Stefan.

[00:25:01] Stefan: The pleasure is mine.

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