Wednesday 3 June 2020
Founder Motion5

Mark McIntyre (Boston Scientific) shares his experience on bringing his team to an aligned Sales State of Mind

How would you describe the purpose of this program (Board Room Credibility for Health Economics Market Access team)?

The main purpose of the program was bridging a gap within the team. We ran an internal review and identified the need to further develop among the low-middle experienced team members, to increase their confidence and competence in interacting with C-suite customers.

Motion5 is mainly focused on driving sales – your team is not a primarily ‘sales oriented’ group. Why were you interested in such a course? What’s your view on how the ‘commercial mindset/skills’ of HEMA members should develop?

True, we’re not a direct sales force, but everyone has a responsibility to drive sales, and it was important for us to build confidence in the team. If you look at the international HEMA team, we come from different backgrounds and aligning our mindset and approach really helped us. It’s an intrinsically good discipline to have.

What are the 3 words you’d use to describe Motion5?

Intimate: I’ve now worked with M5 for about 2 years and as we get towards the end of the program roll-out, we’re getting to a point where it’s almost 1:1 support with the participants. The M5 consultants got really close to the issue and were able to get to the core of what we were trying to achieve by building close connections with our team.

Pragmatic: you can tell there’s a theoretical approach and reasoning behind the interventions, but their interaction always had a clear goal at the end. I like the clarity of that.

Structured: M5 has a clear approach to things: the start of the course was, in essence, to get people thinking. With this clear starting point, they could complete the template (CCA©) that was underpinning the thought process. Moving onto the next phase, the evolution of the program just became clearer and clearer.

What made Motion5’s approach stand out among the competitors?

It was a case of ‘right place at the right time’. We just completed an internal strategic review and were looking for someone to help us, while M5 happened to be in conversation with another part of the organization. As it turned out, they could offer us something that was a perfect fit to our needs.

What did you learn from the program? For whom is this relevant?

The team learned to build a solid foundation for their plans. Context is key, taking into consideration multiple factors, the perspective and final target of the customer, techniques on open questions, tips and tricks and more! Being able to put their learnings into practice really helped them become more confident and effective.
Moreover, individuals became aware of their own skills and knowledge (both existing and new), which helped them in their relationship with the customers and created a sense of pride.

What was the biggest impact you noticed and the long-term benefits? Could you give us some examples?

Many of them are in a much better position to build stable relationships with our C-suite customers, which was one of our main strategic objectives after the review.

What were the most important results your company achieved after the program? Could you share some examples / numbers with us?

We can clearly see that every project (except one) has had a practical application in the business. This was clearly a result of the program.

What helped and what blocked the long-term adaptation?

The original program was heavily geared to “classic” salespeople. What really made a difference was having it tailored to our needs to such a degree that it fits a large and varied team (coming from different backgrounds).

How did your team react to the program: before/after?

The team was openminded from the start and even those who weren’t part of the training wanted in! In general, people really appreciated the investment in their growth and development, so everyone was on board from the very first day.