Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. I have a repeat guest. I'm very excited to have my dear friend, Sheree Hyder, back on this podcast. It's gonna be a real treat because Sheree is amazing. Sheree, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Tom. I'm really excited to be here and talk a little bit more about value. Oh, yeah. So we're gonna talk about value, the v word, and how important it is for MSLs to show their value. Before we get into that, this episode is sponsored by MSL Mastery.
If you're an MSL or if you want to be an MSL, check out mslmastery.com. Great program for aspiring MSLs looking to break into industry. It's called Aspire MSL. RISE, which is a program for new MSLs, you should really check out our RISE program. And then we have training and learning and development programs for teams. So check us out at mslmastery dotcom. So the topic today, guys, is one that when you go to a medical affairs conference, they're gonna be talking about value. Right, Sheree?
Isn't that just what we see when we go to conferences? That's the challenge. It's it's the a $101,000,000 question is how are you bringing value? Yeah. And when when Sheree and I were preparing for this episode, we were talking and, and she used the word value demonstration. So let's start there. So, Sherry, what do you mean? What's the definition of value demonstration for MSLs? And and I think it's something that people you get different answers from different people, but let's keep it simple.
If you go back to the basic definition of value, it's it's what's useful. How are you benefiting somebody? How is it purpose driven in terms of how you are doing something that has an effect on something else? So and and being held in high regard. So let's think about value demonstration in those basic foundational contexts. Mhmm. And I jokingly said the I said the v word, but that's a lot of times, it's just you hear it thrown out so much.
It seems like it's just discussed, since the beginning of time. So I guess the question is, why is it still so important that field medical shows value? I mean, well, everybody has to show value. Otherwise, why why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we getting paid to do what we do? But I think the frustration on medical affairs side is that a lot of things that we do oftentimes get translated between commercial into medical.
And you have this quantitative piece that works well in commercial in terms of looking at dollars, looking at context, looking at numerical figures because it is very revenue driven. And when you try to bring that over to medical affairs, it just doesn't translate because a lot of what we do is very subjective. It's very qualitative, and there needs to be a better balance there.
So I think that there's always been a bit of frustration around, people just saying, well, let's look at the number of KOLs that you met with or the number of, outputs that you had there or any of those numerical pieces because it doesn't really tell the story. Do you think it's getting better? Do you think that over the course of the past, I don't know, 5 or 6 years, things are getting better? I I do. I really do.
And I think that's in hard part due to our our efforts on the medical affairs community side in in terms of us advocating for ourselves and going back to people and saying, look. There's gotta be a balance between quantitative and qualitative metrics. And there's much more creativity in terms of how people are translating that into, a qualitative mix so that people get a better vantage point of what it is that medical affairs is doing and and bringing value, particularly based on strategy.
Yep. And who's most important for MSLs to demonstrate value to would you say? Is it the external KOL community, patients? Is it internal stakeholders? It's it's everybody. But I will say that a lot of times metrics are geared more toward what the internal organization is looking for because they think that that's how you're bringing value, not only to them, but holistically to other partners that are external.
I think you have to look more broadly at value demonstration and really ask yourself when you're creating your own regional strategic plans, am I really honing in on the strategic goals and and the the, piece that fits for medical affairs within that that context so that I'm aligned with medical strategy, but also thinking about how am I serving the patient, the ultimate customer? How am I helping this k o l?
Am I being strategic in terms of how I come into each and every meeting and how I plan for that so that I am effectively looking at both internal and external pieces being a bridge between those. I have to look both inward and outward. So let's talk about the and we're gonna I wanna try to break this out so that we can kinda hit on all the different segments, but let's talk about, tangible ways that MSLs can can show value or be valuable to their external customers in KOL? Let's start with that.
Absolutely. And and I think when you when you break it down, there there's a GATD model that I've mentioned to you before, and I think it really resonates. What field medical does in in more simplistic terms is we generate new information new data.
We assimilate things from various sources and we translate all that information into something cogent that helps understand or evolve the medical strategy and we disseminate important information that's been approved and and make sure that people are getting the most up to date information around that. So if you think about that gatv model of medical affairs the most tangible way that you can do that is look at the actions that you're doing.
How do those actions create contributions that then in fact have impact and therefore value? So you should be striving for impact in terms of the actions that you do in the field, again, aligned to that medical strategy and thinking about those bigger buckets of how am I generating, how am I assimilating, how am I translating, and how am I disseminating. Yep. I love it. And I I we keep hearing this term patient centricity.
That's that's kind of a big big buzzword that we're hearing now, and we know that MSLs can be valuable to patients and families. Can you talk about that piece? Absolutely. I I think that it's really important to keep the patient front and center. That's a big part of what we do and why we do it. Our sense of purpose is patient driven. I I think monitoring social media and understanding patients in their own words is particularly powerful and important to bring back to the organization.
Listening to the patient stories that your clinicians tell encouraging them and inspiring them to tell the patient stories and and therefore then getting those patient verbatims. Understanding what does it sound like when that patient tells you about something they're struggling with or something that's an unmet need. In their own words, what does that sound like? And I think that that is a way to understand it as well as looking at the patient journey.
I don't know if anybody really understands patient journey mapping but going back to the point if you were the patient and you walk in those shoes and you think about how many doctors did you have to see to get an actual accurate diagnosis and sometimes that can be multiple doctors or different types of doctors before you get there. Going from that journey of then what what treatments were tried and and which ones failed and which ones provided partial benefit, but maybe not the whole solution.
So it's that patient journey mapping of the experience in totality of what patients feel. How many days did they miss work? How many events did they miss with their family because of the condition that they have? What types of of emotional responses do they have to their their condition? So thinking about those things and mapping those out, I think, is a really important piece of understanding value in what we provide back to the organization.
Yeah. And I think when, you know, when I talk to MSLs and and I think some of the greatest success stories that you hear from MSLs are are from the the patient side, from the family, and the the role of the MSL in being that conduit and providing that providing value, providing that the dissemination of of research and scientific information that ultimately is is helping patients and families is becomes the greatest success story when when you hear back on the
impact, and the outcomes and and what happens from it. So I feel like that's probably the one of the biggest ways that MSLs are value valuable is in the end result. Mhmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so getting back to as we look at the internal and we look at how important it is for MSLs to collaborate internally with their sales and commercial counterparts, whether it's marketing or r and d, how does how does that add to the the value demonstration?
It's so important to make sure that you understand what your internal partners are looking for. What do they need? What do they struggle with? What do they not understand and need help with? It it creates a bit of a shopping list.
And and if you meet with as many of your internal counterparts as you possibly can that your your team leader and leadership, expose you to and allow you to collaborate with, that gives you the ability to create a more robust and comprehensive point of view as you go out into the field to make those matches and bring things back.
If they're looking for an epidemiologist or they're looking for somebody who can author or somebody who can speak, you know that landscape within your own region that ecosystem and be able to come back and make those connections. But seek first to understand if you don't talk to these people and really understand what those stakeholders want need and struggle with, you're not gonna be prepared to make those connections as effectively. Right. Right.
And putting all this together and seeing the challenge one of the challenges for MSLs is how do they measure and communicate value back to the organization? And what is the process? Are there tools? Is it insights? Is it CRM? Is it metrics? What how does how does that work? Absolutely. Well, it depends on where your team is at in terms of what you're doing, what stage of life cycle you might be at.
So mapping out the activities by life cycle is one way that you can begin to strategically focus on how those actions will lead to contributions that can then lead to impact and value. So getting back to that ACIV model or framework that I I just kind of articulated there, that is how you begin to create the qualitative measures that balance your quantitative measures.
Some creative things might be actionable follow-up in more than 50% of your interactions or collaboration with those internal stakeholders. How many of those collaborations fed into results driven output? Looking at percent of the meetings with the, you know, that have ongoing relationship maintenance. It's not just one and done, but you're having ongoing conversations.
I think that's important to not just meet people, but to also extend those relationships into something purposeful and meaningful over time to create partnerships and advocacy. So there's a lot of different ways that you can measure, and that can get cumbersome and maybe a little overwhelming or convoluted to people that are trying to put it together.
But start with the activities that are relevant to your life cycle for your therapeutic area and then try to look at both quantitative and qualitative pieces of those activities and then build your KPIs so that you can measure metrics become what the measurement or output is of that key performance indicator that should be tied back to a specific activity.
Yeah. It's kind of funny because included in the conversation of like, when you again, you go to conferences, and and the value topic and value demonstration always comes up. But the other thing that always comes up is metrics, which is proving Mhmm. And, you know, quantitative, qualitative, and and the the best ways of proving and and measuring value for MSLs. So it's interesting how these things go hand in hand.
And now we're in a time when when you go to conferences, you there's more vendors, and there's more tools and technologies and CRMs and dashboards and, you know, digital platforms and and artificial intelligence platforms. So how does how do the tools make an MSL more valuable, or can an MSL be more valuable the better they are with some of these tools? I think so. And I think a lot of it gets back to efficiency, but it's it's a little bit of a a learning curve.
For instance, we found, for instance, when you're using AI to look at insights, oftentimes, we have to teach AI our medical language, our terms, and the tagging trees or systems that are used to make sure that you're aligning the output of those medical insights to specific goals and objectives that are part of the medical strategy. So I think it's really important to make sure that we're always involved.
We're always using our eyes and our and our ears and our head to think about the output of those things that we get from AI or digital platforms. But I think they do create efficiencies and and with some thoughtful and intentional approaches behind them, you can certainly yield much better output there that's data driven decision making. So that's really what we're driving towards. And I think what we're getting better at it with a lot of the tools that are out there these days.
Yeah. Because it can get confusing. Mhmm. And there's so much. And I think it's one of the challenges for organizations is is to make sure that they are supporting their MSLs with the the best, tools and platforms and, and setting themselves up for success, not just in what they provide in support, but also in strategic direction and leadership and guidance and training Sure. All those things.
Sure. But as simple as an MSL can create their own dashboard, for instance, in a PowerPoint, just like basically tracking their own progress towards certain goals and and expectations and thinking about then how do they create their impact stories. So that communication piece of what you do when you measure it, you can measure it, but it'll live in a vacuum if you can't communicate it.
And so that's the translation piece of taking the content, the data, the output, and and so the the so what, now what? You know let let's look at what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Why does it matter? And and communicate that back. I think the the biggest breakdown I see oftentimes is MSLs don't oftentimes get enough feedback from leadership or from internal stakeholders about the insights that they deliver.
And I've asked a lot of a lot of MSLs do you get feedback on the insights that you put into the CRM or put into your reports? Most of them say that they don't.
It goes into some type of internal committee that does some type of a review and assessment and and then they they sift out the the more valuable insights for instance but they're not necessarily getting back to the MSLs to say do more of this do less of that and so they're not getting those feedback loops and that communication that breaks down then can affect value demonstration for field engagement. Yeah. So it's really important piece.
And what are some of the other there's I know there's a lot of what we're talking about. There's challenges. I know there's challenges for MSLs as they try to prove and demonstrate their value. Can you talk about that a little bit? It all absolutely. Challenges abound, but but we're up for it. We're up for the challenge or you wouldn't be in medical affairs. So you've gotta create a plan, and you've gotta make sure the plan aligns the strategy and that the strategy is evolving.
Therefore, your plan has to evolve. So I always tell people in my teams when they say, you know, here's a list of things I'm gonna do and they tell me I hope I can get it done. And I tell them hope isn't a plan. What's your plan? So make sure you got a plan. Make sure it's strategic. Make sure you can articulate it. If you can't articulate your own medical strategy, that's a problem. And in in a large number of cases when I'm talking to MSLs, I don't mean even in my own territory.
I'm talking about just like holistically across the world. I'll talk to any of my colleagues working everywhere, and you ask them, can you articulate your medical strategy? They oftentimes can't or they can't do it very well. And so it's gotta start there. If you can't, you know, make sure that you're clear, crystal clear on your medical strategy, your plan isn't going to be effective, and that's going to affect your output for value. So start there. Right. Right.
And then as as the as someone evolves in their career, how do they adapt their their value demonstration when things change, when things evolve? We're we're in a time where, you know, post COVID, everything went virtual, and KOL access is different. So, like, can you talk a little bit about how to adapt and make changes? Yeah. We always adapt. I had a a team leader at one time told us, you have to keep your knees bent, and and that means you gotta be ready for anything that's coming at you.
And and I think he's right because, you know, you you you will adapt. I think if you invest in yourself, I think one of the failures that field medical oftentimes does is they don't invest in themselves. They're so focused on just driving toward a goal for the business that they forget to hone their capabilities. You're not gonna be ready for the next big thing or the next evolution of medical affairs if you don't continue to invest in yourself.
So even if it's an hour a week, it's really important to continue to invest. If that's learning more about digital tools and technology, if it's learning more about business acumen, it's learning more about leadership skills. We're all leaders in the field. Doesn't matter what role you play. You are a leader. You are leading your own plans, your business in that region, and and you have to stand up and defend it.
So make sure that you've got that investment in your skill sets and capabilities so that you're ready for that next evolution. And that ties into, like, one of the things I was actually just thinking about asking you is is what do you say to an MSL, or or what advice do you have for MSLs that feel undervalued? Or maybe they suffer with imposter syndrome.
Maybe they don't feel like they're doing a good enough job, and they're not as valuable or demonstrating the value that they need to because they just don't feel like maybe they're they're being seen by the organization. Gotta ask for feedback. And that's an important one. It's tough tough conversations sometimes, and you have to reflect back and and be be a little bit critical at times. Am I doing everything that I really need to do? Am do I understand the medical strategy?
Are the activities that I'm choosing to do align to that medical strategy? Or am I just going to my comfort zone? If I came from academia, am I just doing a lot of presentations because I'm comfortable educating? If I came from research, am I just focusing on research protocols and not focusing on all the other things that are needed within the scope of that medical strategy? So be a little bit more robust I think in in honing the skills that you need to be successful for that medical strategy.
Talk to your peers in other regions and making sure that you understand how are they conveying value. Find your trusted friends, trusted advisors, and you're an advisor to someone and someone else is an advisor to you.
It works cyclically that way, but make sure that you can communicate it and sometimes I find people do really great things but they don't know how to structure that impact story of so what what what did it really mean to the organization and and sometimes asking for feedback to say I did this I thought it was pretty important Can you tell me what impact it had on the organization beyond the scope of my role and what I know and what I do?
If you're not getting that type of feedback from your team leader, definitely lean in and ask for it. Make sure you understand it and get ready to communicate it and defend it, in a positive construct. Yeah. That is such great advice. Guys, I told you this was gonna be good. I knew this was gonna be good. Sheree, you wanna talk about valuable. You're incredibly valuable, and I'm so grateful to have you back on.
Any final words of advice for folks as we look into the future and, and look into what's coming up in medical affairs? Yeah. Be be creative. Look at look at what you do. Look at your activities. Try to find new and novel ways of communicating and and, shaping the value of what you do, so that people do really, in fact, understand it and appreciate everything that you are doing. I think they do appreciate it, but they sometimes forget to tell us.
Yeah. So make sure that you're you're you're your own spokesperson and and make sure you're getting that feedback that you need so that you can do it even better and and hone those skills. Invest. Don't don't stop developing. Growth never stops. Growth mindset. I love it. So awesome. You're the best. Sharee, thank you for joining, and coming back on. I really appreciate you. And, guys, thank you all for your support of this show. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing it.
If you got value in this, please share this podcast with with others, and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks.