“Focus on immediate gain”
When you Want To Make a Big Behavioral Change in Your Market
The greatest incentive is when your product promises immediate benefits that encourage physicians to give you a brief moment of their busy day in the hope that your brand has the panacea they desire.
Immediate rewards are valued the most and will capture the attention of even the most harried physicians.
While we all want to be happy and healthy in the future, the future is too distant. The immediate gain is the currency that’s most in-demand today. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. Betting on the future offers only low odds but the here and now is a winner every time. Considering the extent of a physician’s exposure to human suffering, this is not such an irrational position for the physician to have.
Doctors are seeing people in pain daily, patients who need as much immediate relief as possible today, and even though long-term gain may be a guaranteed feature, if the short-term benefit is insufficient, your product may never get the chance to prove its worth because physicians are likely to default to their current prescriptions and stay with the treatments they are using now, that are giving relief now, if even only slightly.
If you’re able to change your message and focus on the relief of the symptoms that patients are currently suffering, and doctors and clinics can start confirming this welcome result, their trust will increase and your product will have more and more traction as the therapy of choice. Only then they will open thier ears and listen to your future promises.
