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Market Access Strategic Execution Consultant

Leadership

A Time for Everything

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A Time for Everything

Was there ever a time when we thought about the million other deadlines while we were working on the project at-hand? (all the time!)

Amplify that noise with other the non-work priorities: go for a run, write the blog, make a grocery run, fold laundry, ….

Each second I give attention to these other priorities, I’m taking away a second from the project at-hand. It adds up.

There’s a famous quote by Jim Rohn: “Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”

Each item is special and worthy of REVERENCE. It helps to transfer it from the brain onto paper (make a list), and (if it makes sense) put it on the calendar. Once it’s on the calendar, there’s no getting around it now!

The reality is that there is one of me and infinite of them, so each item has to wait its turn so it gets the attention it deserves.

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The Buck Stops Here

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The Buck Stops Here

President Harry S. Truman famously kept a desk sign that read, ‘The buck stops here!’

Rather than passing the ‘buck’ (responsibility/blame) to someone else, he took on the responsibility for the way the country was governed.

What a professional.

A consultant has the same responsibility to Clients (manufacturers), who have the responsibility to their customers (payers and providers), who have the same responsibility to patients. It’s hard to be mindful of this bigger picture when we’re busy in the day-to-day churn—but imagine what would happen if a single stakeholder in the chain passed on the buck to someone else instead of taking on the responsibility. That stressed out single mother who is barely getting by and working double shifts to put food on the table is counting on me to make sure she receives the proper rheumatoid arthritis treatment.

We expect electricity to relentlessly charge our homes (no excuses). We expect Covid vaccines to work (no excuses allowed there, either). Patients expect to get the treatment they need so they can move on with their lives (no excuses).

Market access is in the business of service.

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Learning Is Like Stretching

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Learning Is Like Stretching

We don’t stretch to burn calories. However, in order to do the work that burns calories, stretching has to happen first. Who knows the value of stretching better than those who rushed onto the treadmill without stretching, only to end up injuring themselves and unable to get back on the treadmill for a month? Besides suffering pain, they were unable to do exactly the thing that they so eagerly rushed into doing.

Taking out time for learning is the same. Learning itself doesn’t bring in revenue. However, I need to learn in order to do the work that brings in revenue.

How much time should I set aside to learn? The highest performers are learning 17 hours/day.

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Collaborations Among Stakeholders

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Collaborations Among Stakeholders

How can us market access professionals (strategists, writers, editors, and everyone else) possibly do our work if we’re not curious enough to seek out our customers’ voice?

In market access, we often treat our asset as our own child and customers’ needs as a stepchild. This backfires on the business as the stepchild always turns out to be the Cinderella of the story.

Isn’t the goal of manufacturers, payers, and providers ultimately the same? To keep patients healthy enough so they stay out of the health care system? It’s just that the market demands each stakeholder to address this call in a different way.

AMCP’s Partnership Forum is a platform where these stakeholders collaborate on tactics and strategies to drive efficiencies and outcomes.

Tapestry Networks is another platform that brings together such stakeholders.

I wonder if there are other such collaborative platforms out there.

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I Get To…

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I Get To...

I have to attend this meeting
I have to turn in this by next week
I have to prepare for this pitch

Vs

I get to attend this meeting
I get to turn in this by next week
I get to prepare for this pitch

How would your world be different if you switched out ‘have’ with ‘get’?

Would your colleagues, employers, and Clients notice the difference?

Would your family notice the difference?

It’s more efficient to pull than to push.

Efficient = less effort, man-power, time, and money for the same outcome.

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Formidable

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Formidable

Good strategies supported by bad content are lame.

Good strategies supported by good content are formidable.

It’s time to stop living with crappy content.

Everyday I get a chance to practice my art.

Doctors and lawyers are highly educated professionals, but still use the word “practice” for their professions, indicating they always have something to learn or sharpen. A good practice is specific, focused, and helps me to continue rising.

Bad content ≠ bad writer (rookie mistake!). Bad content can be flipped into good content by the same writer.

Content development is a skill that can be learned.

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Today is the First Day of Your Product’s Life Cycle

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Today is the First Day of Your Product's Life Cycle

What a phenomenal shape the circle is.

Where does it begin? Now, where does it end.

Is it possible that the circle could’ve started at any another point?

Yesterday ended last night. Today is the first day of the rest of your product’s life.

70% of launches fail. There’s evidence to suggest that the first year sets the trajectory for the rest of the product’s life cycle.

Cycle = circle.

Even if your drug has already launched, do you get another chance to begin?

How you got here is not how you will get there. 

The asset inventory is what it is. It takes months-years to generate new evidence. What will you do in the meantime? Your product already has what it needs to penetrate the market in a way that no other product can–if you allow it.

Take a page from Zig Ziglar’s playbook: If you give them enough of what they want, they will give you everything you want.

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What Does It Look Like?

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What Does It Look Like?

If I want my radical idea to be picked up, it has to look familiar to them.

Build a bridge.

Otherwise, they’re left with two choices: jump across the gorge or go home. What would anyone choose?

In the words of Seth Godin, “It’s far easier to sell someone on a new kind of fruit than it is to get them to eat crickets.”

What precedents have been set? If they did it before, it’s easier for them to do it again.

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How Can My Solution Actually Be a Problem?

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How Can My Solution Actually Be a Problem?

In Trevor Noah’s words: ‘It’s a never a good thing when the solution to your problem SOUNDS like a problem.’

We’re the first to point out holes in others’ ideas…but will never—ever—accept the slightest fault in our own.

Wharton professor Adam Grant outlines four distinct thinking styles we use to approach problems

  • Preacher: “When we’re in preacher mode, we’re convinced we’re right,” explains Grant. From the salesman to the clergyman, this is the style you use when you’re trying to persuade others to your way of thinking.
  • Prosecutor: “When we’re in prosecutor mode, we’re trying to prove someone else wrong,” he continues.
  • Politician: It’s no shock that “when we’re in politician mode, we’re trying to win the approval of our audience.”
  • Scientist: When you think like a scientist “you favor humility over pride and curiosity over conviction,” Grant explains. “You look for reasons why you might be wrong, not just reasons why you must be right.”

“I think too many of us spend too much time thinking like preachers, prosecutors, and politicians,” Grant insists.

Grant mentions one Italian study which taught budding business owners to view their plans as hypotheses for testing. Compared to a control group “those entrepreneurs that we taught to think like scientists brought in more than 40 times the revenue of the control group,” he reports (40 times!).

Grant has a point.

The truth works.

All of this is just another way to convey the importance of a learning mindset.

What can I do to be a better scientist? Why is it so hard to be a good scientist?

How Can My Solution Actually Be a Problem? Read More »

I Must Govern the Clock, Not Be Governed by It

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I Must Govern the Clock, Not Be Governed by It

‘I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.’  –Golda Meir

Golda Meir lived for a single goal that was impossible to achieve. All of her efforts were for this particular goal. She achieved it.

In the process, she set an example for what a person in control of her situation is capable of:

  • Valedictorian despite being poor
  • Wife
  • Mother
  • Signer of Israeli Declaration of Independence
  • Prime minister
  • Iron Lady of Israeli politics
  • Personally visited families of soldiers killed in battle

…and yes, she was a woman.

I Must Govern the Clock, Not Be Governed by It Read More »

Krishna Patel, PharmD
Market Access Strategy and Execution Consultant
info@sojusllc.com
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