Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen
Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work. And we have visibility into how they’re engaging with the platform. It’s a one-stop shop for everyone.
Janssen, a global pharmaceutical leader, struggled to keep its dispersed sales team consistently trained on complex, regulated products. Relying on in-person sessions and scattered resources led to inefficiencies, disrupting reps’ access to essential, up-to-date information for customer engagement.
Janssen is a pharmaceutical company and division of Johnson & Johnson that focuses on research and development to address unmet medical needs.
Pharmaceuticals (Johnson & Johnson)
Keeping pharmaceutical sales organizations trained and up-to-date with the most current information has always been difficult. The size and geographical spread of the workforce and the highly specialized and regulated nature of the subject matter make it challenging to stay on top of changes. Salespeople also must understand the needs of a diverse set of customers who require a quick pitch and be able to articulate product differentiation confidently.
A sales readiness strategy is essential. However, Janssen India knew using different tools for each readiness aspect wasn’t effective.
Before Mindtickle, all rep training at Janssen India happened face-to-face or via video calls, with no on-demand training available. Before scheduled training, managers would distribute materials via email. In addition, the material required to train reps was owned by multiple teams: learning and development, marketing, and medical affairs. Any attrition on these teams would disrupt the training material and schedule. Sales reps—especially newer ones—struggled to navigate the system to find what they needed.
“Three years back, our vision was to have all rep learning happen in one portal,” explained Dr. Somnath Datta, Head of Commercial Excellence at Janssen.
In 2018, Janssen made this vision a reality by partnering with Mindtickle. Today, sellers’ learning needs are all addressed within a single portal, which brings congruence and simplicity to the sales team’s learning journey.
Janssen built their award-winning onboarding program, Nirmaan Academy, on the Mindtickle platform. With Mindtickle, Janssen can deliver all onboarding content and bite-sized learning to over 600 sellers on the go, both via desktop and mobile. This ensures reps are ready to sell faster.
Since launching Nirmaan Academy on Mindtickle, Janssen has experienced a 50% reduction in rep ramp time.
The onboarding initiative has also resulted in improved sales outcomes. In 2021, Janssen experienced a 35% increase in sales after a new sales rep’s first six months and a 10% increase in sales after 18 months.
There are many common assumptions about how sellers learn. For example, it’s easy to assume that bite-sized content is more effective when learning online — and that the content length is inversely proportional to the chance of a module being skipped.
However, Janssen wanted to test the validity of these theories and adapt its strategy appropriately. To do this, it analyzed the behavior of more than 500 of its sellers using Mindtickle over three years.
Their analysis uncovered some surprising findings. For example, the length of training content was a deciding factor in whether content was reviewed — but not in the way the company originally assumed. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, learners were more likely to skip shorter modules, between one and three minutes, presumably because short modules are perceived as having lower importance.
Another key finding of the analysis was that the optimal time to release training modules was in the first 12 days or the last five days of the month.
Janssen has used these discoveries, among others, to adjust their learning content and improve its effectiveness.
With Mindtickle’s detailed analytics and all seller data and performance in a single platform, Janssen can continue to refine and evolve learning content with their sellers.
The company has seen measurable results from these optimizations. Online training scores have improved by 25% and course completion time has decreased by 11%. In addition, the number of skipped modules has decreased by 24%.
The team at Janssen understands that learning isn’t a one-time event. Instead, sellers need opportunities to practice their skills and reinforce learning.
To deliver effective, engaging practice opportunities, Janssen first needed to understand how sellers engage with reinforcement activities. Specifically, they examined the effectiveness of role-plays and quizzes by looking at how likely learners were to reattempt or review each.
The team discovered that video role-plays were the most effective practice method, with 71% of learners reattempting at least once. In comparison, only 12% of learners reattempted learning content without a quiz or role-play, while 39% reattempted if a quiz existed. Janssen incorporated more role-plays and quizzes in their learning content to boost seller engagement.
Coaching is proven to drive sales results. However, Janssen’s approach to sales coaching wasn’t garnering the results they wanted.
In the past, Janssen used a coaching form that was part of its legacy CRM system — and focused solely on a rep’s communication with a healthcare practitioner. Managers needed access to a computer to complete the forms for their reps but could not bring their computers onsite. So often, they waited until the end of the month to complete all coaching forms. By the end of the month and with countless ride-alongs, managers could not remember the coaching session details and were just filling out each form to check a box. This was a tedious, inefficient process that wasn’t improving sales outcomes.
“The coaching form had become a chore,” said Datta. “And everyone was getting the same scores.”
The company set out to improve the coaching process by implementing Mindtickle’s sales coaching module and revamping its forms. Janssen’s current coaching form focuses on four pillars of sales success: knowledge, communication, planning, and behavior. With coaching forms now powered by Mindtickle, managers can complete them while shadowing sellers and record accurate feedback for improvement.
Janssen’s learning and development team uses the coaching scores to determine where additional, tailored training is needed. This also reduces sellers’ time in training sessions they don’t need, improving their training efficiency through personalized learning.
“We might see that 15 reps scored poorly in a specific aspect of planning,” explained Datta. “So those reps will participate in a small group training focused on that aspect.”
In addition, Janssen has developed a framework called Bridge, which empowers sales managers to be more effective coaches. Ensuring managers are coaching effectively was the final missing piece in their coaching culture.
“As a result of using Mindtickle sales coaching, 95% of coaching forms are completed on-site and on time, resulting in higher-quality coaching data to inform personalized training for sellers,” said Datta.
At Janssen, sellers interact with doctors daily. While communication skills are important, so too is product knowledge.
“You have to have a basic level of knowledge before going to the field,” said Datta. “But we found some reps could not answer basic questions about the product.”
Today, the team at Janssen leverages Krosswind, a knowledge check housed in the Mindtickle platform. Each quarter, every rep must take an assessment to test their knowledge. If a rep doesn’t achieve a passing score of 80%, action is taken to improve knowledge. For example, they may be assigned relevant training modules in Mindtickle and then a follow-up exam. They attend a face-to-face or digital training session if their scores haven’t improved.
Janssen wanted to understand how seller engagement in Mindtickle was correlated with sales performance. To do this, they used the data and analytics in Mindtickle to create an engagement index, which analyzed each seller’s participation in the platform, based on five parameters:
Using the Index, the company mapped its sales organization into four quadrants:
This enabled Janssen to adjust their learning and development interventions to try and change behavior and in turn, improve sales performance.
For example, they found that learners who demonstrated that they could plan their sales visits and connect with doctors were also less likely to skip learning modules. Janssen hypothesizes that salespeople who are poor planners in some aspects of their role (like learning) are also poor planners in others (like preparing for sales visits). With this knowledge in hand, they can now intervene to find ways to help their salespeople plan more effectively.
“The Index confirmed the assumption that an individual’s learning behaviors on the platform correlated to their fieldwork,” said Datta. “But we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much more we can do with the data in Mindtickle.”
In the past few years, Janssen’s partnership with Mindtickle has become key to the organization’s sales success. In fact, in 2021, the company achieved its annual target and grew by 13.5%, all despite a challenging COVID lockdown environment. By centralizing all components of sales readiness into a single platform — including onboarding, training, and coaching — Janssen’s sales reps always have easy access to everything they need to close deals and drive revenue growth.
10%
Increase in sales rep 18-month sales performance
96%
Manager net promoter score for Nirmaan Academy, the company’s onboarding initiative
25%
Improvement in online training scores
11%
Reduction in course completion time
24%
Decrease in skipped training modules
Manager net promoter score for Nirmaan Academy, the company’s onboarding initiative
Improvement in online training scores
Reduction in course completion time
Decrease in skipped training modules
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