From the course: Selling into Industries: Healthcare

Understand the key metrics of your buyer

From the course: Selling into Industries: Healthcare

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Understand the key metrics of your buyer

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- How are you evaluated? Is it your quota, pipeline, profitability? You can probably answer that question without even thinking about it. To be a successful rep, you need to answer the same question about your buyers. You see, there are two main drivers in healthcare, cost and patient care. These two big metrics are evaluated in a lot of different ways. And different buyers are responsible for different pieces. Let's begin with financial metrics. On the supplier side, the financial metrics tend to be pretty typical of most businesses, profitability, revenue, growth, and expenses. The CEO, COO, and CFO are the executive owners of these metrics. On the provider side, the profitability piece may be different. Some providers are not for profit, which of course, changes their financial goals. Now let's talk about the patient care metrics. Even though suppliers aren't always out front and center with patients, they still have patient care metrics. For example, many suppliers have Chief Medical Officers who are responsible for testing, accreditation, and safety. Larger firms sometimes have several directors who oversee a product or a product line in their company and they have similar metrics. On the provider side, patient care metrics are things like readmission rate, patient satisfaction, and of course, treatment outcomes. And those can be the responsibility of a Chief Medical Officer or a Chief Quality Officer, or the Chief Nursing Officer. These executives are focused on improving patient outcomes and patient experiences. In some cases, a high up executive or a doctor in private practice is responsible for both financial metrics and patient care metrics. And you'll need to connect to the metrics you can impact the most. When you're connecting your solution to a metric, you need to be both specific and quantifiable. For example, which statement do you think would garner the most interest? We help hospitals reduce their staff mistakes or we help hospitals improve their shift transitions which leads to fewer medical errors and a more satisfied staff? Think about the drumbeat of numbers in your head. Now know this, your buyer has a set of numbers too. Attaching yourself to their metrics gets you the interest you need to start a compelling conversation.

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