INBW25: Behind the Marketing: Preparing Account Management for Successful Selling Into Health Systems, With Co-Hosts Stacey Richter and Dave Dierk, Co-Presidents of Aventria Health Group

I was listening to The #HCBiz Show!, featuring hosts Don Lee and Shahid Shah, earlier this year—specifically, their two-part series entitled “Selling Into Health Systems” [part 1 and part 2]. Besides being co-hosts of The #HCBiz Show!, Don Lee is the founder of Glide Health and VBP Forward [which stands for value-based payments], and Shahid is a serial entrepreneur; one of his companies is Netspective. Shahid can be found doing HIT keynotes all over the country, too. Both of these guys, Don and Shahid, know a whole lot about selling into health systems from both sides of the table. So it is not a surprise that they did a couple of shows on this theme.

A lot of what Don and Shahid were talking about in that “Selling Into Health Systems” series dovetailed superiorly with some work that we do over here at Aventria and that we know a lot about. So pretend there’s a drum roll here because I’d like to announce that this is not just an inbetweenisode. We have just driven right off the Relentless Health Value podcast format reservation. With Don and Shahid’s permission, of course, we are going to play some clips that I find particularly relevant from that #HCBiz Show! “Selling Into Health Systems” series. Then Dave Dierk, my co-president over here at Aventria Health Group, and I will discuss said clips. Dave and I are going to talk about how exactly a—let’s just call them—seller needs to prepare its account management team to go into a health system and successfully do all of the things that Shahid and Don talk about.

As foreshadowing, a lot of what Dave and I recommend to prepare an account management team for successful selling centers on five links in a chain … and here they are: Account managers need a really firm grasp of (1) market knowledge and (2) customer knowledge. They need (3) collaborative selling skills (the ability to listen and dialog), (4) consultative skills (which should be additive), and lastly, there is a great requirement for (5) strategic ability to think critically around how to make all of the other links in the chain actionable. And you’ll hear these five things woven throughout the conversation I have with Dave in this health care podcast.

One last note: I need to mention Brian Van Winkle. This podcast conversation that Shahid and Don had references an article [part 1 and part 2 on The Health Care Blog] that Shahid coauthored with Brian, who is executive director of innovation over at Johns Hopkins.

You can learn more at aventriahealth.com/perspectives.

Listen to “Selling Into Health Systems” (part 1 and part 2).

Dave and Stacey are co-presidents of Aventria Health Group. Stacey specializes in helping employer, pharmaceutical, device, and pharmacy clients by creating partnerships with other health care organizations. For 20 years, Stacey has innovated better-coordinated health solutions benefiting all stakeholders and, most of all, the patient.

Dave is a 30-year veteran of managed-markets marketing. After working in consumer marketing with AT&T and health care publishing with Elsevier, Dave made the move to medical advertising and communications at KI Lipton, Inc. Subsequently, he became a cofounder of Pinnacle Health Communications. Dave is an accomplished strategist, providing innovative customer marketing, access, quality, and health intervention solutions for large clients and has directed the development of numerous industry-leading campaigns in primary care and specialty markets. He has supported clients in disease areas that include oncology (Bristol Myers Squibb [BMS], Novartis, Eisai), virology (BMS, Merck & Co.), pharmacy (American Pharmacists Association, Merck, Novartis), and blood disorders (Novo Nordisk), to name a few. Dave has helped more than 15 clients achieve top rankings in their respective categories. He is also an active member of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance.

03:37 Don Lee on understanding problems in health care on a micro level rather than on the whole.
03:55 Focusing on larger entities that are looking to collaborate with a health system rather than innovators and start-ups in health care.
04:52 Looking at innovation and affecting behavioral change more broadly.
05:42 Helping manifest potential value.
06:06 Don Lee on being a proactive innovation guide rather than telling a health system how their system works.
07:39 Learning new skills and putting new infrastructure in place to support new approaches.
09:24 “The value that you bring is the incremental between where they are now and what they could attain.”—Stacey
10:42 “It’s more about you than it is about your customer.”—Stacey
12:41 “All of that is predicated on, ‘What’s your strategy? What’s your plan?’”—Dave
14:54 Don on doing the consulting work.
15:16 Shahid on building business cases for everything you bring into the health system environment.
15:48 Don on the number of perspectives at the table and needing to understand and align your product to this multitude of needs.
17:24 “Once you get to yes, your job is not done.”—Dave
18:55 Shahid on common mistakes on consultative work.
20:35 “If it’s not meaningful to them, relative to other choices, then they might not act on it.”—Dave
21:48 “That challenge is underestimated.”—Stacey
23:21 Collaborative skills vs consultation skills.
24:18 Shahid on how the value of your product changes depending on the organization and clients that you’re working with.
25:42 Shahid on pushing a product before considering the customer’s needs.
28:39 What an account manager needs in order to be successful.
30:22 What a paradigm of success consists of.
32:47 Breaking down barriers and paradigms to get the right approach.
33:35 Being relational, not transactional.