As an officer in the Marine Corps, I learned early on that no matter how high up the ranks you get,  the best leaders lead by example and get out into the field and out from behind their desks – out in the rain, snow, hot desert sun, or whatever Mother Nature throws at you and your Marines. Physically seeing, experiencing, and feeling what the unit and each Marine encounters is worth it’s weight in gold. As an executive or compliance professional, you or the right representative need to get out into the field as well.

[Yes, that’s me in the middle: 1st Lt. L. S. Vincze, USMC in the field with E Battery, 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division, 1984.]

 

When it comes to understanding and supporting your sales force, knowing the challenges these folks experience first-hand builds credibility, respect, and trust with the people you monitor. This will enable you to better understand their challenges and better support and arm them with the tools to compete and win aggressively, while safely in compliance. Monitoring should not be a game of “Gotcha!” It should be a golden moment to mentor, coach, and establish mutual trust. It’s an opportunity to get in touch with real world circumstances, and while doing so, to learn, inspire, and motivate how to sell both ethically and effectively.

Live, in-person field monitoring is how you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening. Covid-19, however, has put field monitoring (along with most in-person sales activities) on hold for the past year. With vaccination rates going up and most of the country poised to cautiously open up over the coming months, the dam of pent-up demand for face-to-face meetings is ready to burst, releasing a wave of live activities. While virtual appointments aren’t going away, the natural excitement of meeting in person again, combined with the enormous pressure sales people face to make deals and rekindle relationships, makes now the right time to plan for field monitoring again. A competitive atmosphere, combined with greater risks, and likely stricter enforcement, indicate that it’s time to think about redeploying field monitoring and how that will be executed and by whom.

Certainly, from a compliance perspective, you need to know and identify if a sales call is being conducted improperly. Just as importantly, however, field monitoring creates an opportunity to inspire and motivate your sales team to comply for the right reasons. It’s an opportunity to build trust so that you can also learn from individual sales reps about the real world compliance risks that they encounter. So, whether it’s virtual or in person, a hybrid monitoring model that considers both digital and face-to-face meetings will likely be the most effective model in the foreseeable future.

From a sales person’s perspective, having a stranger with the task of  “compliance monitor” follow you around for 8 to 10 hours can be intimidating and down right scary. People have been known to have sleepless nights and even to have to pull over to throw up their breakfast before meeting their assigned monitor! It’s important to recognize the reality of this genuine fear factor.

But it doesn’t have to be this scary. First, getting the right person to conduct your monitoring is key. A seasoned compliance professional would approach monitoring much more as a coach or mentor. Listening actively, observing, and providing thoughtful feedback that answers the why behind the what of compliance communicates mutual respect and generates value. That’s how you win trust. An experienced field monitor will reinforce that they’re there to understand challenges and help find solutions that tie compliance back to the core values and healthcare mission of the company.

Another, positive way to think about the role of field monitors is as “compliance ambassadors.” Sales people have tough jobs. Most are good people who want to do their work well, but they are under a lot of pressure. They have limited time to get their message out and connect with customers, who are hard to book, and working over Zoom has been a struggle for us all. Everyone is Zoomed out! While we all know that lavish steak dinners and exotic trips are out of bounds, making smaller offerings that test boundaries may be tough to resist. An experienced field monitor can explain the difference between an appropriate modest lunch and an inappropriate extravagant dinner. By observing tactics and behavior, we can give feedback and nip bad habits in the bud as trusted compliance coaches and mentors.

By contrast, assigning a young, inexperienced monitor, who often stays silent, takes notes and completes a monitoring checklist reinforces the fear factor. Compliance officers who deploy the right monitors into the field and who factor this into their strategic plans set their sales people up for success by keeping them safe from risks. Field monitoring is less about identifying or detecting bad practices (which, if they are occurring, you certainly must do) and more about preventing them. Monitoring should be used as an opportunity for coachable moments, constructive feedback, and reinforcing a job well done. It’s about inspiring compliance through building credibility and trust.

As conditions on the ground open up, we can expect added pressure for sales teams to get out there and produce results. Be prepared to navigate this environment effectively by enlisting the right compliance monitor. The right monitor adds value by representing you in the field as your ambassador, who can win trust and inspire compliance on your behalf (and who is savvy enough to recognize B.S. when he or she sees and hears it!). Conducting field monitoring in this realistic, pragmatic, and positive manner will help you prevent misconduct, support your sales team, and unleash their skills. You’ll take another step toward turning compliance into your force multiplier, your competitive advantage. Start planning now to deploy the right monitors with your field sales force to keep winning with compliance!

If you’re interested in field monitoring to enhance your compliance program, contact me at svincze@trestlecompliance.com or 617-800-3704. Working with TRESTLE Compliance is like having a compliance mentor and ambassador in the field. We ensure that you get partner-level service 100 percent of the time. 

Copyright © Steve Vincze 2021.