Diversifying Sales - Pharmaceutical Reps

Todays post was written by Lynn Mason who works with several Pharma Reps on a daily basis.

I often wondered what it was like to sell drugs to a doctor. Why is it so difficult for the pharmaceutical reps to convince a doctor to purchase a drug that would help patients feel better? The pharmaceutical industry has taken a turn to almost nothing. I know that the Reps are out there pushing the pavement and struggling to push new “miracle drugs” to the doctors. So the solution is of course to break bread while discussing business. In the old mafia movies, it seemed that discussing business over a meal seemed to always work. So it should be easy to do these days.

You know the old saying the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well why not make this true for the doctor’s. After all everyone loves to eat. That is a great ploy for the Pharmaceutical Reps to get more appointments with the doctor’s offices and introduce their products. A nice afternoon lunch with simple things, as long as there is dessert. But we don’t want to offend them with heavy pastas and pizzas, they are still doctors and they will more than likely practice healthy eating. They also have a great opportunity to build relationships with the office staff – they are usually more than happy to answer questions about the doctors. In addition, they may provide information/reasoning about their physicians’ prescribing habits that you may not have had the opportunity to ask the doctor yourself.

Pick the office staff’s brains every time you get the chance; it will help build those relationships…and we all know that selling is primarily about relationships!