What will it take to survive in the pharmaceutical sales industry? The older, conventional approach to the role of sales and marketing in the field has to change and we need to completely re-evaluate the way that pharmaceutical marketing training is rolled out. For far too long now, conventional methods of engagement have been celebrated, where a sales representative is expected to “detail” with a set number of healthcare professionals in a certain region, over a set period of time and according to given parameters. Success was often measured in terms of percentage of penetration and the focus was product-centric rather than client- or problem-centric. As the pharmaceutical consultant knows all too well, the industry is going through a process of regeneration and metamorphosis and such an approach to business will not work. Conventional approaches to pharmaceutical marketing training are becoming increasingly outdated.

A pharmaceutical consultancy can certainly help to develop new tactics and methods for the client in the workshop, but most of the attention needs to be paid on how changes are implemented in the field. In short, the sales representative, him or herself, needs to be reinvented. Can this be accomplished with the existing staff of reps? Certainly, entrenched attitudes and approaches need to be overcome and the rep encouraged to develop a more “entrepreneurial” approach to doing business. Indeed, the sales representative will now have to take on much more of an independent role, at the very least in the way that they approach their income generation motivators.

The very definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who is willing to go the extra mile and not be easily disheartened. This will often involve innovative thinking and will require a greater understanding of the problem and, indeed the client. The entrepreneurial sales rep should dig deep to find out what drives the buyer, generate more workable intelligence and then be encouraged by the pharmaceutical consultancy to bring this intelligence back and share it within a newly created “think tank.” For the sales rep, this will require a huge change in the traditional way of thinking, as they now need to pool all this intelligence in order to give everyone the ability to grow, understanding the market much better and leading to a sharply elevated sales potential all the way down the line.

All the methods of motivation revolve around a comparison of peer performance to push the sales force forward. The rep with higher revenue was seen as superior and this in turn was used to motivate the remainder of the force. Any pharmaceutical consultant should understand how this could be counter-productive to the end goal and how each entrepreneurial sales rep could, by contributing to the potential for the entire team, end up in a better position. The issues of motivation and remuneration must be approached from a completely new angle, but when all is said and done this entire process is far more likely to result in a much more fruitful relationship between the end-user and the rep. It is definitely time to employ this kind of new approach, as we certainly know that the typical practitioner is far from happy to see the sales rep today, as it is perceived that there is no real feeling of apathy or understanding, anymore.

Alan Gillies is the Director of L2L Consulting, an elite pharmaceutical consultancy firm which specialises in Strategy Development and Implementation Excellence for prestigious multi-national organisations.

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