An MSL guide to Veterinarian Meeting Strategy

What is the role of a Medical Sales Liaison (MSL)

An MSL is a medically specialized representative for pharmaceutical companies. By outlining the product specifications, advising, and educating, they act as a bridge between pharma companies and their clients. MSLs maintain relationships with clinicians, researchers, and other KOLs in specific therapeutic fields, from biotechnology to medical devices. This aids them in positively conveying the benefits of a company’s drug or device. While MSLs usually aim to portray a company favorably, it is their ultimate objective to provide accurate and unadulterated information. Furthering the pharmaceutical company’s interests is not their primary responsibility; rather it is to promote their concepts and developments.

MSL Meeting Strategy does depend on a few key factors, however. For one, the direction of the approach depends on the position and significance of the stakeholder in question. Before meeting clients, it is imperative to conduct stakeholder mapping to categorize stakeholders according to their influence. You can then create an engagement plan to cater to each particular group more effectually.

How an MSL should Prepare for KOL Meetings

To start, nailing down the format of the MSL presentation is essential to making an impact. Generally, about 30% of the presentation delves into the general industry landscape and the rest explains the company strategy and its penetration into this landscape. However, intricate details are often excluded, although these are key.

Use Other MSL’s previous work as a Guide

One clever trick is to reach out to your mentors and close colleagues for examples of their best designs. These resources have already been refined and perfected for maximum efficacy. Therefore, all you’d have to do is input your data into a meticulously produced template. Simultaneously, it reduces the redundant task of planning out a demonstration from scrap.

This allows you to focus your effort on the meat of the preparatory process: background research.

Background Research

Upon assignment, an MSL is usually provided with an article to use in the development of their material. This, however, contains a minimal amount of information. To truly establish yourself in the industry, it is best to consult alternative sources. Being well-researched in every single aspect of your subject and therapeutic area raises your success rate and grants you an edge over other presenters.

• Scan through the company’s investor section for detailed, up-to-date, and accurate information. This can provide an extensive base upon which to build your case. Also, pay attention to the tone and word choice used in press releases and public statements. The phraseology will give you a better insight into the company’s angle and positioning. The better you understand their message, the better you can relay that to the clients when asked.
• Thoroughly familiarize yourself with the target opinion leader or organization. Focus your search on commonalities between your base company and the target organization. Ask yourself: how do their goals, intentions, or interests align? Are they a good cultural fit? Highlight those aspects during the address.
• You also want to explore recent research releases and news related to the topic, such as on pub-med or medical news sites. Referencing an article from the New York Medical Journal, even if you’re reusing notes, will lend a fresh, relevant flavor to your work.

Anticipate and Accommodate Every Outcome  

Remember that, as an MSL, you may be addressing a marketing team or a panel of specialists in the subject you’re detailing. This means that during the Q&A session, you may face a myriad of intricate medical, functional, or operational questions.

• Anticipating questions and creating slides based on past FAQs can showcase your energy and devotion to the project. A Medical Science Liaison’s job is to build relationships, so distinguishing yourself in these ways is paramount.
• Prepare yourself to mold your explanation to the audience you face. Be flexible enough to effectively convey your message, whether to a top epidemiologist or a businessman. Familiarize yourself with the pertinent jargon, but you should not be rigidly dependent on it. Improvisation is the key to leading productive sessions regardless of the type of attendees.
• It does help to loosely script out the presentation, including structure and order. Use this when practicing and present it to an experienced MSL to understand the intricacies of delivery techniques. They might disclose important guidelines, such as the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The level of forethought invested into each meeting will certainly be noted and appreciated by your medical colleagues and KOLs. Their good opinion will go a long way, not just with the current assignment, but in future sessions as well.

How to Ace Meetings with Key Opinion Leaders

For a Medical Science Liaison, having medical knowledge is a given necessity. But an often-overlooked attribute is the skill of communication. All sales representatives have access to data, statistics, and expository resources. What sets an MSL apart is not the presentation but the delivery.

MSLs must regularly interact with both internal and external stakeholders in a myriad of organizations across the veterinary segment. The burden of identifying these stakeholders also falls upon them.  But what determines which members of the medical community will be valuable to approach for any given proposition?

Who are Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in the Veterinarian field?

It’s important to first identify all actors who will play a part in the pharmaceutical distribution process. Accordingly, distinguish and prioritize these based on their level of influence.

Primary

For general-purpose antibiotic, antibacterial, or anti-inflammatory medicines which are commonly prescribed for primary animal care, disseminating information to veterinarians is vital. These may include

• Doctors of Veterinary Medicine (DMVs)
• Primary Care Vets
• Veterinary Practitioners
• Small practice vets

Secondary

These are specialists who will ultimately determine the lifecycle and success of advanced treatments, diagnostic tools, and medications. Complicated patient cases are attended by them. They are the ones who will benefit from the product, contribute to its improvement, and give feedback on its performance.

• Specialist veterinarians
• Clinical managers at Veterinary Centers
• Veterinary pharmacists
• Veterinary surgeons who are in charge of leading teams of vets.

Central (Key Opinion Leaders)

Those who determine not just the usage, but dictate the trends in therapeutic niches. They have extensive experience, established themselves in their industry segment, and are followed by many other industry experts.

• State Veterinarian Medical Board Director
• Influential experts in the veterinary field
• Senior veterinarians,
• Faculty heads in schools of veterinary science
• Faculty heads in colleges of veterinary medicine
• Key researchers in veterinary research journals
• Directors of veterinarian councils, medical associations, and centers
• Key Speakers at veterinarian councils and events

Medical Science Liaisons should plan out their entire session to cater to the distinct expectations and needs of each stakeholder group.

The Story behind the Product

People are drawn to stories and vivid images more than banal facts and figures. So, manipulate your words, statistical data, and the composition of the information to portray a compelling image. When telling a story, the audience cannot be overlooked. Connect the generic material to real-world hospital occurrences which would resonate with the M.Ds. Personalize the presentation by delving into the origin of your passion, incorporating it in an engaging and not indulgent manner. This should help you to differentiate yourself from other MSLs while simultaneously building a relationship with future clients.

The Value of the Product

The value of the product must be distinctly tailored to each stakeholder. It is essential to intuit what motivates and excites them: what their goals, preferences, and perceptions are. Also, pay attention to their moods and mental capacity for retention. On this basis, one can highlight the unique benefit of the treatment or procedure to an individual’s practice or therapeutic specialization. No matter how polished the presentation is, if it does not directly address their need, it will not make an impression. Provide objective evidence to back up every claim and to cement their confidence in your offering and company. Don’t get too caught up in the engagement to address their real concerns, such as availability, logistics, convenience, etc. Explore the industry landscape to address the current alternatives and how your product outpaces those.

The Drawbacks of the Product

Elaborate on both the positives and the negatives. Doctors always know that drugs and medications are incomplete without side effects. Overselling the treatment method will only create skepticism and lower their perception of your reliability. So do what most professional salespersons do: emphasize the advantages, and mention the potential downsides. Then illustrate how the benefits outweigh the costs. This is a balanced and judicious manner in which to establish the superiority of the drug.

Key Takeaways

• Conducting extensive background research allows the MSL to smoothly present to and engage any set of stakeholders.
• It is highly worthwhile to prepare separate strategies to target different stakeholder groups.
• Be attentive to the meeting attendees: glean their expectations and requirements and regulate the meeting accordingly.
• Present your information in an attractive format but don’t forget to place emphasis on the functional features of the solution as well.
• It is just as important to touch on the negatives as it is to showcase the positives.
• In everything, make sure that your performance is spot on.

Keep in mind, your goal isn’t just to instill a favorable perspective of the medical consumable, but also to establish yourself as a capable MSL.

” Elianne Liong is a staff writer for Celeritas Digital.  She specializes in researching and publishing content related to a range of topics in the animal health and veterinary industry, including technology transformation, business processes, HR, data science, and advanced analytics. “