Sales Reps In The Wild: A Species Destined To Die?
48 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 9th, 2011 // 9:48 am
Join us on a trip to a remote marketplace where an untouched species - the pharmaceutical sales rep - somehow remains preserved. “In places like this, we can still witness some interesting, but ultimately, depressing behaviors,” says our tour guide. Then, along comes the alpha rep, who relies “solely on instinct to detect its prey.” Pity the poor physician, who is attacked with blunt instruments.
“Like the Neanderthal man before him, the pharma rep finds himself in an evolutionary dead end, completely unable to sustain himself in this changing environment,” the tour guide intones. “It seems this particular species is destined to die out. Perhaps, this would be for the best.” Actually, not all docs would agree, at least according to a recent survey (read here), but how many would want to encounter a hungry pack of reps in the wild?
harley
I’m no fan of sales reps. But at the end of the day, when they lose their jobs they are still people LOSING THEIR JOBS. And it’s not funny.
harpy
lol!
Ed Silverman
Dear Harley,
Thanks for the note, and I complete agree with you. I believe the video is trying to speak to the changing nature of the promotional model, for what it’s worth. In any event, I was not advocating for further layoffs and apologize if that impression was somehow created by choosing to post this clip.
Regards
ed
John
Every…and I mean every industry has sales reps and they have a place in the scheme of things to get products used, but more importantly to educate physicians on the uses of their product, costs, clinical studies, etc. To think that HCPs are going to have the time to get this information themselves is a bit naive. What a rep can educate a physician on in 90 seconds would take the HCP many minutes to gather on their own. The idea that all reps reps bad is like saying all people are bad. The vast majority behave and act professionally, but of course you never hear about these reps because it wouldn’t make for interesting or funny reading. We always want to hear the negative.
John
Ridiculous video!
Jacques Cousteau
Having studied marine biology as an undergraduate, this clip reminds me of the remora fish, sometimes caller sucker fish or shark suckers, who travel in large packs and attach themselves to sharks as the sharks swim through the water. It is a mutually beneficial relationship. The remora benefits by scooping up uneaten tidbits from the shark’s mouth, just like the reps bring home leftovers from their daily office caterings. The remora then finishes by cleaning the shark’s teeth, just like the brown nosing rep, who like to “close the deal” with what he/she things is a brilliant rhetorical flourish, like “I’ll give you this sleeve of golf balls in my bag for your next dozen scrips”.
The shark benefits from the ability of the remora to remove malignant parasites from the shark’s underbelly, just like the reps make sure to move their malignant competitors’ sample to the nether regions of the back of the sample closet, or sometime rip them off when no one is looking.
The relationship is not permanent. When the shark has no further use for the remora, it casts the remora off its body, then the the two swim off in their own directions, never to meet up again. Now that sharks have become an endangered species there is an oversupply of remoras, thus their own survival may be in peril, just like the reps.
Tim
Yes, too bad if yet more people are losing their jobs, even if their work is as a sales rep. Think of all of them, working or not, who have followed the script even after they realize that it’s full of lies and the “patient” has bad side effects or dies from the drug.
Then think of the few who got their courage up and protested, or who quit or were fired by their companies. Or even became whistle blowers.
Not a happy topic this holiday season.
Steve Knows
If you want to get an idea of a huge pharma (Amgen sales reps), take a look at Cafepharma.com. See them in their real jungle environment.
Steve Knows
Ed,
Very representative choice of material. They are blood thirsty. As I said above, give Cafepharma.com a review.
Tom
Yes think of them. Losing a job which they performed hopefully without Tim’s jaded cynicism. You assume so much, I think unjustifiably.
I cannot understand why so many on here trash reps so gleefully. Do you know one? Do you know his/her family? Have you taken time to understand their education and motivation to work in this industry? And do you have anything more constructive to to offer than the trite, bandwagon pap that I see so frequently here?
Come on. You can do better than this.
john
Tom, when I was growing up my mother used to turn on “The Newlywed Game” every afternoon. The host would ask questions intended to provoke sexually titillating answers (”Which does your husband like least on you, hairspray or a bra?”. My mother would roll her eyes and let loose with an unending stream of comments about how disgusting the show and its participants were.
The next day at 2:00 she’d be glued to the TV again.
In the hierarchy of human needs, feeling morally superior to others falls just behind food and shelter, and just above sex.
jjrepper
Most doctors appreciate the information and educational resources that reps bring. The reception is generally positive and appreciated. I don’t know any reps that take home left overs from a lunch and learns with the physician’s office - however I do know that most doctor’s offices over state the number of participants that will be joining the lunch, so that they can in fact take home the left overs themselves. I believe you folks that chronically make degrading statements about sales representatives are extremely naive - have you never heard the true age old adage: “Nothing happens until a sale is made.” You people would not have a job if there were not sales people out there selling the products and services that support your industry. Your assumption that sales reps as a group are going to become extinct, die and go away for eternity is completely absurd and ridiculous.
Steve Says
JJ,
Remember, if you had no product, you wouldn’t need a salesman. So forget the worth of the all the scientists that provided them with a product to sell.
Doug
Having been a pharmaceutical rep with a 40 year career in virtually all positions from bottom to top….this is disgusting. If it’s supposed to be funny, if merely demonstrates the thoughts of someone who knows nothing about the industry, the reps and the training they receive, or possibly one who wasn’t good enough to make the grade in a tough and demanding industry. Yes, some bad apples exist as they do in all industries. However, the majority of physicians understand the value they receive, and if not, they don’t see the reps.
It’s easy to vilify an industry or class when one has no idea of the reality. This merely reflects the prism of one person’s reality!
The Monk
WOW…After 35 years I have watched the evolutionary changes in the Sales Rep. The year I started, a Rep with Abbott retired after starting in the late 1930’s. He said that he “sold” his products from his trunk directly to Physicians and drug stores up until the “60’s. This was the era of the Detail Man. He told me that he say big changes and the Reps. job would soon be eliminated.
He was right in some respects. We were not Reps. in the strictest sense of the meaning since we did not take orders anymore. It was at that point that the job was in flux. I am still not sure that the term Pharmaceutical Sales Rep accurately described what we did. Were we detailers, product information givers, influencers, a walking PDR, disseminator of medical information, caterer, promoter, showman, grant giver, glorified sample UPS man, or the sum total of its parts or none of the above.
I used to train my Reps that the easiest thing a Doctor could say was “Yes, I will use your product”…the opposite to “real” selling.
No Access Doc
Doug, JJrepper made all of the necessary points. You violated the first of sales, which is don’t sell the sell. You probably forgot that after 40 years as a rep. I’m sure you and many others will have plenty of time in your forced retirements to ponder and reflect on a profession that went from being a trusted provider of information to that of bagel caterer while the doctor gets all of the data he needs from e-publishing sources.
john
NAC, from your comments I assume you drive a 5 year old Toyota and live in a 2500 square foot home?
I’d hate to think that level of self righteousness was coming from someone pulling $200K or more per year out of the healthcare system.
No Access Doc
John, just to correct you, I drive a 7 series model BMW, and 2500 square feet was two houses ago. Twelve years of post high school education will do that for you easier than a bachelors degree in Sports Information Management and a crash course in Pharmacology for Dummies.
Basel lair
MULTIPLE SALES FORCES OF MASS PROMOTION. I coined this few years ago at the hight of multiple sales forces craze by all bigphamra cos. I know this was true both for USA and Canada where the biggest cos multiplied their (especially) GP sales force to up to 10 per each and every territory from cost to cost (to cost in Canada for they have 3 costs). This was based on the idea that multiple sales pitches result in higher use of your drug by the docs exposed to this insanity. Yes it was an insanity that no other business in any universe, let alone on earth used as their business model. This was purely bigpharma invention, sending several reps to sell the same product to same customer. The logic behind so many reps?The brains of this biz believed it was likely doctors would see 6, 7, 8… different reps from same company 12, 14, 16 times in a month than to see one rep 12. 14, 16… times in the same period. Especially if half or more of reps were pretty little things “promising” their docs good time if they are seen. Of course this insane model started collapsing few years ago and is still taking place. This is the number one reason behind thousands of perfectly nice and capabale young people losing their pretty good jobs. Where will they go now? Who needs sales reps when almost everything is taken over by internet? They may still be needed but never in numbers bigpharma hired and now fired thus beraying all those who vere so happy and enthusiastic about their wonderful jobs. Now the dream (or better said nightmare) is over and will take a long time till those so rudely displaced by, by now completely heartless bigpharma, find new careers.
ps: to No Access Doc; typical American greed and “need” for better and bigger. Perhaps that is another key factor for where America is and will be for long time. We who are not there feel sorry for you and think the so called “American dream” is in reality American nightmare that we around the World suffer for too. Tell us how big is your house, we know how big the BMW 7 is.
The Monk
This is becoming an emotional topic. For those of us who lived through the ups and downs, yes, we were led astray. When I first heard a Marketing Manager refer to “share of voice”, the only thing I could think of is selling a drug like Coke or Pepsi. Under this philosophy, Reps were walking commercials and like a commercial on TV…it required a pretty spokesperson. Gone was the Rep delivering medical science. It was, taste great…less filling, You deserve a break today or, good to the last drop! Hence, the hiring of former cheerleaders and jocks as Reps.
So what is the answer…what’s done is done. We have killed the gold laying goose and it is the Rep. who is being sacrificed on the alter of Big Pharma greed. As one of my Reps told me my last day before my retirement…It was a good ride while it lasted!
john
Sorry, NAD, I misunderstood. I thought your comment was about the ethics of commercialization of healthcare.
Learning that your intent was merely to trivialize and insult others whom you have never met or been harmed by, I feel quite embarrassed by my comments.
Congratulations on finishing your education 12 years post high school. It took me 14, but I was always a little on the slow side.
Tim
3 words about this writing: disgusting, classless and uneducated.
Tim
NAD, dont know what kind of education you had, you would benefit from learning from John.
NA Doc Colleague
I defend and reiterate everything the No Access Doc has said. I just mailed something at the Fedex office yesterday. When I had got to the box to estimate the value of the shipment, I used the abbreviation NCV, which stands for “No Commercial Value”, which pretty much can be applied to the reps that overpopulate the world of doctor’s office across the country.
A NA doctor friend of mine has one simple rule. If you’re going to take up office time and space, try and detail the doctor with an article that’s less than five years old. Not surprisingly, this rule has resulted in about a 75% reduction in rep visits. He also orders samples directly from the company, and assumes, usually correctly that if a journal article is really important (as opposed to the stale rep-cycled stuff) it will be published electronically in timely fashion.
Paul Simms
My name is Paul Simms; I’m the creator, writer and, yes, lead actor of the video which began this thread.
It’s never great to have to explain yourself; just as explaining a joke always renders it unfunny. But I feel I must answer some of the points here.
The theme of the video is ‘evolution’. The point being that reps need to evolve. This film parodies the old-style of rep, where golf, silly freebies and an aggressive style were, regrettably, the norm. It’s only that form of rep that needs to die, for the sake of the industry and healthcare in general.
Every sales manager I speak to gives a lot of lip service to ‘new models’ and ‘new customers’. Rather than endlessly repeating what they say, I felt more action would be forthcoming if I used parody to demonstrate just how outdated and silly the old model is(was). This might incite real action.
My very business and career depends on pharma sales continuning to exist, so I’m in a similar boat to some of the former reps here. But I’m not going to sit down and let the world fall apart around me while the environment changes. The message is very simple: rather than complaining about it, reps must educate themselves, find new ways of working, understand the common good. Otherwise they deserve to die out. And yes Harley, they are indeed, and it’s painful, but they can do something about that.
So: please save pharmaceutical sales. Save yourselves. Evolution is both great and ugly. Adapt or die. Evolve.
john
Paul (and Ed):
Thanks for taking the time to come by and explain your video and what you were trying to accomplish. Nonetheless, I believe that the overall approach may not have been the best one.
The video does not simply criticize specific behaviors, but rather creates a stereotype and ridicules an entire group of people who have nothing in common but their occupation. As such, rather than promoting a move away from specific behaviors, it encourages ridicule and disrespect toward the entire group, irrespective of whether individuals are guilty of the behaviors outlined in the video.
Whatever the good intent may have been, if you look at the responses this video received, they are very similar to those that would have been received by a racist or sexist video in the 1960’s. Members of the ridiculed group defending their own behavior and denying that the video was representative of their own behavior, and gleeful, hate-filled remarks directed in an unfocused way against sales reps generally.
What I did not see in response to this video was any thoughtful discussion on how to improve our healthcare system or how to better handle the marketing of pharmaceuticals.
With respect to all the good work that Ed does, and which I presume Paul does as well, I was pretty uncomfortable with this video.
NA Doc Colleague
Paul, it’s pretty difficult to adapt to change when you have a 20 hour/week six figure job that gives you enough time every day to drop your kids off at day care, get a manicure, 90 minute workout at the gym, catch up on the soaps, and in the summer maybe squeeze in nine holes before sundown. Who would want to trade that for a real job?
NA Doc Colleague
John, the mere inclusion of reps in a discussion of sexism in your remarks truly shows that you and your colleagues have an overly exaggerated sense of self importance, that is, unless you compare yourselves to the striking Memphis sanitation workers that brought Rev Martin Luther King to town in 1968. Yes, indeedee, I can see you guys marching down main Street wearing your signs that say “I Am a Rep-I Demand Respect”. You guys would scatter at the first site of a billy club, probably to the nearest Blues joint on Beale St.
NA Doc Colleague
Meant to say racism and sexism. Editor got truncated.
The Monk
Whoa…NA Doc colleague, stop stereotyping. Ask my wife about me leaving at 6:30 A.M. to get to NYC to meet my Reps by 8:30 A.M. Ask her about holding dinner for me to 7:00 P.M. so I could have it with my kids. It took me 35 years to just inch into the 6 figures. Don’t get a manicure, my wife was a stay at home mother (a sacrifice she gladly made), only got to watch soaps when having to wait in a waiting room by a rude M.D. not honoring an appointment and only played golf in the daytime when a M.D. wanted a free afternoon outing. So you see…stereotyping is a two way street.
I could talk about the M.D.’s who worked out of their houses, took chickens as payment, charged only what a patient could afford,and still made house-calls when I started about 40 years ago but that would be stereotyping greedy individuals who went into medicine just to make alot of money.
Piss Away !
All you posters seem to be paying more attention to a pissing contest.
It’s now the present and who gives a damn! The thrust is, get the product off the shelves and into the hands of the patient.
Can't Hide Your Lyin Eyes
Here’e a quote from a rep chat room under the thread “What Kind of Samples do You Steal”:
“I have been here since 2000 and have supplied countless friends and family members with free drugs taken from doctor’s sample closets. Lipitor, antibiotics, allergy and birth control pills are among my most requested. These doctors offices disrespect and treat us like s**t (and besides they get these free anyway) so I don’t feel bad at all taking these for people I know that need them”.
Guess it’s just payback for disrespect, I suppose.
Teflon no more
What’s this about samples? I read the following title of a tread on cafepharma: THERE IS GOLD IN THEM SAMPLES.
Doc
The value, or past perceived value, of reps has diminished and will continue to diminish. Due to well deserved regulation enforcement brought on by years of off-label promotion and buying business, the rep of today is unable to really talk of anything outside the PI. It is easier for a doc to look up the PI on a computer.
The other travesty of the modern rep, is that most are non-science educated, marketing puppets. Their marketing masters are typically people who started out marketing diapers, tissue or toilet paper and move into pharma, bringing their marketing ” prowess ” for toilet paper to prescription drugs. Pathetic.
Many reps may very well be well intentioned, but their knowledge of medicine is 1 inch wide and 1 inch deep. Survey after survey show the # 1 reason docs see reps is for samples, not knowledge.
MC RPh
It would be interesting to know what would happen if pharma had to choose between having to do away with either samples or sales reps. My money would be on them choosing to get rid of the reps.
Samples are one of the toughest things we fight in managed care pharmacy. They are a direct bypass to thoughtful prescribing. Instead of choosing the medication with the most value, the one in the sample closet with the pre-printed Rx pad wins.
Part of the reason that samples work is that many (if not most) physicians have no idea what drugs cost or their relative cost to each other. It is impossible to determine value if you are missing the cost part of the equation.
I was speaking to a dermatologist the other day who wanted to prescribe Solodyn (minocycline extended release) for acne. The cost per day is approx. $28.22 where generic minocycline is about $3.40. She had no idea of the cost difference…
Can't Hide Your Lyin Eyes
MC RPh, preprinted Rx pads have been outlawed for a number of years. Agree with the rest of your points.
One of my companies used to recruit shoe store salesmen for reps. Odd choice you may think, but how many times have you walked into a shoe store and walked out with a more expensive pair than you intended to buy? The “shoe guys” didn’t know s**t from Shinola about their drugs but they were always top sellers.
Bobiseverywhere
As a tenured representative, I can see both sides of the argument.
The providers are taught in med school to distrust the reps. This is partially a direct result of all the nonsense that went on in late 90’s and early 00’s.
All I can say, is that not all reps are the same. I have great relationships with new and seasoned providers. I have no relationships with other new and seasoned docs.
The key is relationships. I was able to prove myself rather quickly as someone that can answer your questions, get the answers if I dont know them, and respect yours as well as the offices time.
I have had the luxury of having drugs in my bag that garnered me access even to those offices that were “no see”, and have for several years now, not carried any samples at all.
I have worked hard to maintain a level of respect for myself and those I am interacting with.
I have seen over 40 counterparts come and go in my time on the job. Some got it, most did not.
I saw the video, and thought it was funny. I have evolved, partly in thanks to my company continually providing training, and also because I have gotten older, and a little wiser.
Some of us actually want to be here, and work to be the expert we are for the medications we sell, as well as the class of drugs. I do not have 12 years of post high school education, but that is my choice.
Please do not use cafepharma as the litmus test for judging all pharma reps. That site is a waste of time, and nothing but a sounding board for all the negative people in the industry.
As far as the future of reps, I see the industry shrinking every 18 months. I have survived 9 layoffs over the years, partly because i have been able to evolve.
No idea when my time as a rep will end, whether I retire, or get pushed out.
Please don’t judge us as all the same, and we wont judge you providers as being all the same.
@Doc- some of the physicians I interact with are less informed about a particular disease state than I am, even though they are MD or DO. I do not have to have medical knowledge vast and deep as yours, as I am not selling across as many disease states that you are.
I cant know it all, and neither can you.
I speak only for myself, when I say that I like my job, and continually study to be able to answer any questions you may have.
Recently retired from pharma
Plenty of blame exists in EVERY sector of the health care industry. Pharma companies have ruined a once honorable profession with armies of robots with mirror territories. Reps meet in the morning, map out their day and hope not to “step” on each other in offices. Seeing armies and smelling expense accounts, doctors soon started to play the game, telling office staff a perk of working for them was lunch 5 days a week and all the free samples needed for family and friends. Additionally, academic types pretended to be your buddy as long as they could get in on “consulting” gigs, obtain grants, get text books for residents or have companies fund self promoting clinical updates for community doctors. Academic centers then started funding full time positions off of “research money” from pharma. Looking back, the no see doctors were always my favorite, they had the smallest patient base, and I did not want to spend my time with more rude people since I had to do that with the companies I worked for.
For perspective, I sold for many years, then managed up to 8 managers and 80 sales reps across all sectors of the country. I’ve seen it all, done some myself, hired, promoted and fired reps, nurses, pharmacists and doctors. Everyone is to blame. One final point of why I like no see doctor, I also drive a BMW, its a nifty 5 series, chicks dig the 5 over a 7.
No Access Doc
RRFP, I agree that the 5 series Beemer is a better chickmobile than my 750 Beemer. As a practical matter, however, having been married three times for less than two years each, I would expect the lease on the Beemster to outlast the duration of my relationships. However, if you want to match man perks, the chicks do dig my outdoor hot tub, heated towel racks and grill kitchen a la Bobby Flay.
jjrepper
171Doug,
I understand that the sales effort is completely unnecessary if there are no new products to sell. I have the utmost respect for inventors, developers, scientists and creators. My dad and my brother are those technical creative types. The professional sales representative many times has the ability to take that technical product or service to the market place and create movement. Scientists want nothing to do with that process. Scientists and engineers need sales professionals to get their products and services into the minds and hands of the users. We as sales professionals need scientists, engineers and creators to provide products for us to sell. It’s a very synergistic relationship.
Small Pharma
Been in this business over 12 years. I’m not rich, I don’t have a Bimmer and my salary is quite average even though I’m usually tops in my district in sales. Do people not realize how hard we work? As sales reps, how much crap we put up with? Do they realize the regulatory microscope under which we’re constantly operating? How many of our critics have to constantly recertify for a product they sold for years? How many realize the mountains of paperwork we have to complete AND do our jobs? One final note: those who think sales create reps instead of the other way around are impossibly naive. Sure, no product to sell, no rep required - duh. But if you want all that R&D $ you invested, scientists payroll covered manufacturing costs too, you’d better start selling your product. Reps aren’t anything like remoras, “Cousteau”, unless a remora finds the food for the shark to eat.
Small Pharma
One of the most painful movies I ever saw was “Love and Other Drugs”. We can’t operate like that and keep our jobs, much less stay out of Federal prison.
No Access Doc
“How many of our critics have to constantly recertify for a product they sold for years?”. SP, you need to be more circumspect about making such statements. Doctors are required to recertify every 10 years, and their livelihood ddpends on passing. Most have to start studying at least one year in advance.
If physicians had to get through your level of recertification they could probably do it in one evening with a giant bag of nachos and a six pack of Coors while watching Monday Night Football.
PharmaRep2012
As a rep in Big Pharma I loved this video. The funny part about this video is that I believe most of us reps have and do evolve with our clients. It’s the ‘alpha-reps/bosses’ that we report to that do not see this evolution. That is because their bosses who they report to do not see this either. All they see are the sales we grow that they think are based on their old school methods,thus reinforcing all the sacred cows that, just…won’t…die…argh!
Mindano Iha
The problem for sales reps is that they are relaying information which has been “filtered” by the pharmaceutical companies.
Some reps are aware of this, some are not.
Either way it’s a great shame for the reps.
Physician
How ridiculous! You make the physician look like an idiot - unthinking, uncaring, unintuitive and totally helpless! You are the idiots!!!!! To think that I will be influenced by a coffee cup is the foder of left-winged literature which is unfounded. Does it ever occur to any of you that the rep might just present some information that is helpful to patients?????? …and without that information, it might be detrimental to a patient(s). Of course not! You are consumed by overwhelming hate of Pharma - hope you don’t get sick!
original industry insider
Hey doc, you may not like my industry’s coffee mugs, but you sure do look spiffy teeing off on the first tee at Augusta National with one of our company-embossed golf balls left over from the days when we handed that stuff out like candy. And perchance should a few rain drops fall we will be so happy when you whip out that company-embossed oversized golf umbrella you gladly accepted from us. When you pull that tee out of the ground after that 300 yard smackaroonie down the middle make sure to check the embossing and remember who gave you those free bags of tees for that dozen scrips you wrote. And when you fire up that Boxster to take you home just harken back to the days of “gas and go” and “dine and dash” when our reps met you at the gas station with a free pizza for the kids and a free tank of gas for two minutes of your precious time.
That’s right, you don’t need our stinkin coffee mugs, but the rest of the perks weren’t too shabby.
Terri F
Pretty stupid, only makes those who criticize pharma look bad. One of the most insulting videos I’ve seen, and no, I’m not a sales rep. This is just playing moral police and it’s stupid.