No one ever said it would be easy. But being a rep these days, well, it just seems to get harder and harder. At least that’s the take-away message from a poll conducted for Pharmaceutical Representative magazine. The sample size of 205 respondents, including 29 who indicated they were in a management role, is rather small. Nonetheless, a temperature reading can be useful and they mostly work at big names - Glaxo, Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer, Abbott, AstraZeneca, Schering-Plough and Merck, for instance.

Of course, to live is to complain. And so the reps say the one thing that has the most “negative impact on performance” is the industry’s own code governing interactions with docs. Adopted five years ago, the PhRMA code, for those who don’t recall, is supposed to create guidelines for such things as CME, speaker training and lunches. Of the sales reps, 46 percent chafe at the code, while 41 percent of the sales managers don’t like it. The American Medical Association’s Prescribing Data Restriction Program is a distance second, as nuisances go. (Take a look).

Self-esteem wasn’t measured directly, but one finding offers a window: Samples are viewed as the most important selling resource and reps estimate that roughly half of the docs wouldn’t see them if samples aren’t provided. The reps claim they provide docs with new info in less than half of their sales calls. In other words, the rep is akin to the pizza delivery man. Not surprisingly, reps viewed as “sample suppliers” are more likely than those viewed as “new information providers” and ‘trusted colleagues” to get less than one minute of time with a doc. (Look at this page). In general, reps and managers spend a median of four and five ninutes, respectively, talking about their lead brand, while full message details are delivered only less than a fifth (16 and 17 percent of the time.

And what do the reps cite as the reason for such limited time with docs? Too many competing reps, of course. This perception is particularly strong among those targeting primary care docs (as opposed to specialists) and among sales managers (versus reps). Yet hope strikes eternal, even among sales reps - despite the ghost of Willy Loman hovering overhead as layoffs decimate their ranks, 40 percent say they expect their own sales force to grow by 2009.