We all know how it goes: A Super Rep gets promoted to the position of first line Sales Manager. Of course, "if you know how to sell, you know how to lead a Sales team", no? (Sarcasm). This is the biggest mistake many medical companies make: promoting the high potential Key Account Manager to Sales Manager without offering support. What people tend to forget is that this is a ENTIRELY DIFFERENT JOB! The skills of a successful Sales Manager may not be present at the start of this new role. This creates frustration in the newly promoted Sales Expert. On top of that, she now has her peers reporting into her! She can't make the difference anymore by selling, she needs to do it THROUGH other people. Quite challenging. It should be standard practice for companies promoting former reps to offer them a coach for 6 months. This will serve as a shock absorber. We enjoyed greatly to accompany a newly appointed Sales Manager on her new trajectory. We started by making sure the person understood her default leadership style, became very mindful about this, before she could start working on her rapport with peers, the team and her manager.

About 4 years ago we were involved in a commercial due diligence effort related to a hemodialysis company. This time again we had the chance to validate an investment thesis, but this time it was for a company active in the home dialysis space. For years, people have been saying that Home Dialysis (HHD & PD) is the future. But it seems that there are various barriers to adoption. Some are related to the product, some to the patient population, but very often there is a market access component as well. A new therapy often does not fit established reimbursement schemes. Unfortunately for innovators, it is not enough to have a safe and efficacious therapy that is approved by the regulatory bodies and liked by the patients. If the funding is not there, everything may collapse.