The Biggest Liaison Hiring Mistake
(and how not to make it)
If you’re looking to hire a new liaison, don’t make this costly mistake.
What is the biggest mistake practices make when it’s time to hire a new liaison?
The #1 mistake I see practices make when hiring a new liaison is to take their trusted front or back office person that has a good personality (but no sales experience) and try to turn them into a sales person.
While some practices may get lucky with this strategy some of the time, it’s an expensive risk to take. You’re creating a vacancy where one of your strongest team members excelled and moving them to a role they may not be well suited for, leaving two gaping holes within the practice.
So what’s the solution?
Hire an experienced rep with a proven track record in a comparable role. What did they accomplish in that role and can they back up their claims with solid data?
If you’re not a sales person or you don’t have the margin to train a new sales person, look for someone who has been well trained by their previous organization that can be up and running in no time.
Here are a few other common liaison hiring mistakes (and how to avoid them):
Hiring someone with no medical or medical sales background
This is the person who will be representing you to your referring partners and training them on your medical technology and procedures. If they don’t understand the medical field or know how to navigate a physician’s office, the learning curve and ramp up will be far greater and require a much larger training commitment on your part.
Hiring before all of the internal pieces are in place and expecting sales to happen
Because you never get a second chance to make a first impression, it’s important to make sure everything else in the practice is running smoothly and you have a solid referral system in place before hiring a liaison.
Think: Phones, scheduling, clinic flow, referral process…
Hiring based on your “gut” feeling or likeability
While likeability is important, unfortunately, it does not always equal capability. Hire someone who is able to demonstrate their ability to meet the demands of the role.
Hiring too quickly
Most practices who are hiring a liaison needed to fill the role yesterday. In these situations, it can be tempting to make a quick hiring decision or hire the first candidate that you like. Rushing the process can cause you to overlook red flags. Save yourself a lot of heartache and headache and take the time to compare multiple candidates and meet with each of them several times.
Still a little unsure about this liaison hiring thing?
Important attributes to consider when hiring a liaison:
- Do they have the characteristics you can’t teach such as internal drive, work ethic and coachability?
- Are they okay with ambiguity? Even a proven sales leader in a highly structured organization may not be able to make the leap to a fast paced and continually evolving practice.
- Can they communicate well with people of all levels from the gatekeeper to the technician to the physician CEO?
- Do they have a system or the ability to create systems for their role and the practice?
- Are they a team player or only out for themselves?
If you’re ready to hire a new liaison, take your time and make this hire a great one!
