Thread: How to approach the market

I think that is a good idea. I would probably tell the sales Reps they will need to provide their own laptops to help get this business up and going. Tell them you will up their commission a bit. Then you spend time on the phone and internet forming a team, communicating, organizing etc.

Got to be a drug rep!!! TO get a doctor to listen to you, you need to bring in lunch for the entire staff. Even doing this you may not get much time with the doctor. But if you get the front desk girls and the office manager to back you up the doctors will follow. Most doctors are very busy and have little time to take phone calls from somebody selling a product. They expect you to come into their office and bring something free (i.e. lunch, or drug samples). Keep in mind they seen a ton of pitches and are very evidence oriented so you will need to show them how you will make them money. Some doctors are booked months ahead without your program so why should they use it? Might be beneficial to get in with a company that already is using reps and see if they will market your product. That could save you time and prevent you from having to do the hiring process. I work as a clinician so let me know if you need anymore insight of the doctors office.
Mike

Originally Posted by faq88

Got to be a drug rep!!! TO get a doctor to listen to you, you need to bring in lunch for the entire staff. Even doing this you may not get much time with the doctor. But if you get the front desk girls and the office manager to back you up the doctors will follow. Most doctors are very busy and have little time to take phone calls from somebody selling a product. They expect you to come into their office and bring something free (i.e. lunch, or drug samples). Keep in mind they seen a ton of pitches and are very evidence oriented so you will need to show them how you will make them money. Some doctors are booked months ahead without your program so why should they use it? Might be beneficial to get in with a company that already is using reps and see if they will market your product. That could save you time and prevent you from having to do the hiring process. I work as a clinician so let me know if you need anymore insight of the doctors office.
Mike

Thanks.
I wasn't expecting to talk to a doctor on the phone. My calls are to get some time from them where i would go there and demo the product. i'm not trying to sell the product over the phone as that wouldn't be too practical.
A neighbor of mine used to be a sales rep in the industry and he said that it would be difficult to get a company to come along and "share" their reps, that was one of the things I've thought in the beginning because they have the network.

As for why they would choose this, it all comes down to how the market it's working right now. I'm seeing more and more searches about a particular specialist and that's a market that's not tapped where i live. It's an opportunity for them to get targeted patients instead of spending money in the yellow pages.

Originally Posted by sm media

I think that is a good idea. I would probably tell the sales Reps they will need to provide their own laptops to help get this business up and going. Tell them you will up their commission a bit. Then you spend time on the phone and internet forming a team, communicating, organizing etc.

I was thinking something similar, as like if they have laptop and internet i could give them more % and pay for the internet as long has they have a minimum number of sales.
Thanks.

Create a basic video demo outlining the benefits of your system, put it on YouTube and then email it to the secretary and doctor (even buy a mailing list).

Have a way for them to request an in person full demonstration.

Originally Posted by Jonleehacker

Create a basic video demo outlining the benefits of your system, put it on YouTube and then email it to the secretary and doctor (even buy a mailing list).

Have a way for them to request an in person full demonstration.

Never thought of that before. Will see if i can do something like that.
Any more ideas?

faq88 got it right.

EVERYBODY wants to sell to doctors.

They know this and have put in place mechanisms to keep everybody out, so they can actually work.

Based on your explanation, this tool/service is great for the admin staff at the doctor's office, not for the doctors directly.

your customer is the secretary or administrative nurse who runs the office. This should make the life easier for them.

Sell this service to them, they will love it and they will sell it to the doctors.

Makes sense?

Even if you could just get to the offices with some cookies (food is very important with front office staff) and ask to talk to the office manager may give you better results. Like I said the doctors usually follow with what the office manager says. Its the office managers responsibility to make the appointments and keep the doctors busy. The doctors are just a money making tool, that has a lot of say in what happens. Most of them are all about making money, but you need the office manager to buy in on it first.

Originally Posted by andviv

faq88 got it right.

EVERYBODY wants to sell to doctors.

They know this and have put in place mechanisms to keep everybody out, so they can actually work.

Based on your explanation, this tool/service is great for the admin staff at the doctor's office, not for the doctors directly.

your customer is the secretary or administrative nurse who runs the office. This should make the life easier for them.

Sell this service to them, they will love it and they will sell it to the doctors.

Makes sense?

Yes, it makes perfectly sense.
The problem i see is that from my experience selling other products one needs to get the top management in most of the cases.
In some cases it will be the person that will be using the product that will change the bosses mind. That happens usually when they heard the product from others and know that's what they want.
In cases where they don't know about it, it's hard to get them hooked because they usually shift the responsibility to their management.
It will depend on the type of structure available...

I need to get some thought on this because the product is not for the doctors but they are the ones who ultimately say yes or no...
Using staff leverage is really a good way to get this into the door.
One more way to say that it's important to get into the door...

Originally Posted by faq88

Even if you could just get to the offices with some cookies (food is very important with front office staff) and ask to talk to the office manager may give you better results. Like I said the doctors usually follow with what the office manager says. Its the office managers responsibility to make the appointments and keep the doctors busy. The doctors are just a money making tool, that has a lot of say in what happens. Most of them are all about making money, but you need the office manager to buy in on it first.

I see what you're saying...

1. Try to find out how other similar services approached doctors
for example the echannelling[.]com I mentioned earlier.
2. If many doctors gather in a single location, like a surgery in the UK or a channeling center in the asian countries, then the center owners or managers.

Easiest would be the 1st option, can get the best advice and benefit from their +ve/-ve experience.

3. Just thought of this, if in the UK , I would contact the National Health Service, and do a deal with them.

4. Doctors wife's, usually study at universities, approach them ?

Or wholesale through CPA's that specialize in docs as clients or related doc office software resellers. There must be medical office trade shows as well.

There are a lot of conferences that have vendors. Examples would the ACSM, AMA, AAOA etc....

Professional Medical Organizations

If there is a meeting in your area you could setup a table. This is usually a great opportunity to meet with doctors, but you will be competing with numerous other vendors. Often the vendors are located somewhere were the doctors will get food and beverages which will cause them to mingle around you. Have some handouts and freebies to increase the number of interested people.

Originally Posted by CommonCents

Or wholesale through CPA's that specialize in docs as clients or related doc office software resellers. There must be medical office trade shows as well.

I'll ask my CPA maybe he has some and we can take it from there.
Thanks.

Originally Posted by faq88

There are a lot of conferences that have vendors. Examples would the ACSM, AMA, AAOA etc....

Professional Medical Organizations

If there is a meeting in your area you could setup a table. This is usually a great opportunity to meet with doctors, but you will be competing with numerous other vendors. Often the vendors are located somewhere were the doctors will get food and beverages which will cause them to mingle around you. Have some handouts and freebies to increase the number of interested people.

Hhmm, have to look into that. I've to see how that works here.
Thanks.

I think you got some great ideas on how to approach the office manager / doctor in order to get an appointment, but my question if I were the office manager / doctor would be: "How does this help me?".

And... "How am I supposed to keep track of patients scheduling appointments over the phone AND via the web? This seems like additional work for my staff - for example, when someone CALLS to book an appointment, not only would my secretary have to look at the appointment book to see what's been booked by phone, but now she would have to also refresh / check my web app to see if there have been any recent changes to the schedule there. Seems like it would be easier for our staff to make more scheduling mistakes, having two systems to keep track of."

Also... "How are my patients supposed to explain what their symptoms are through your web app, so that I know in advance, what I'm going to possibly be treating them for?"

Be ready to answer those types of questions, because if I'm thinking of it (and I don't work in a doctor's office), I'm sure they're going to think of it too, and ask you.

Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by kwerner

I think you got some great ideas on how to approach the office manager / doctor in order to get an appointment, but my question if I were the office manager / doctor would be: "How does this help me?".

And... "How am I supposed to keep track of patients scheduling appointments over the phone AND via the web? This seems like additional work for my staff - for example, when someone CALLS to book an appointment, not only would my secretary have to look at the appointment book to see what's been booked by phone, but now she would have to also refresh / check my web app to see if there have been any recent changes to the schedule there. Seems like it would be easier for our staff to make more scheduling mistakes, having two systems to keep track of."

Also... "How are my patients supposed to explain what their symptoms are through your web app, so that I know in advance, what I'm going to possibly be treating them for?"

Be ready to answer those types of questions, because if I'm thinking of it (and I don't work in a doctor's office), I'm sure they're going to think of it too, and ask you.

Hope this helps!

Initially we may think that's a lot of work, but i think the increase in workload is very small and the benefits are greater. The doctors may think differently, you're right, but I've built the app so that they do 2 clicks to check/uncheck an appointment and have email alerts so they stay on top of things.
I think that for a small office with 1-2 doctors this will not be a problem.
In the second phase I'm planning to add a widget that will make the bridge between the doctor's software and the web app. This requires more resources and that's something i don't have right now. Also planning to have alerts in the form of SMS.

As for the symptoms when they book an appointment they chose what's the reason of the visit from a list. Something like this for a Dentist:
"Dental Consultation"
"Dental Cleaning"
"Braces"
"Bridge"
"Crown"
"Tooth Whitening"
et, etc
Thanks for your post.

The key is integration w/ their current system. Unless you have a huge benefit for a stand alone app, nobody wants to re-enter info twice for extra work load and potential for human error.

You might want to look at how Opentable works for scheduling reservations for restaurants. They have monetized it very well. I'd copy their model and look at how they might integrate w/ the restaurants software.