Do You Have to Give A Lot Of Presentations As A Pharma Rep?

That question has just came in, and I don't want to waste any more time waiting to answer it. Personally, this is how I'm going to answer it: It depends. And it depends largely on a few factors that I'm going to list down below:

1) The type of presentation

Basically, there are two types of presentations pharma sales reps have to make:
i) One-to-One or also known as face to face presentation. This is a presentation done to a single customer during day to day call. Most pharmaceutical companies require at least making 8 calls a day; with a mixture of doctors and pharmacy calls, or other healthcare provider, depending on the product the reps promote.
ii) Group presentation. In this part of the world, such presentation will falls under CME which stands for continuous medical education, or CPE -- continuous pharmacy education. And there are also special events presentation if requested by customers. The aim is to provide customers with information on disease and disease management (ehem!)

Sidenote: With the growing concern of compliance issue nowadays, it's good to bare in mind that no events should be used to influence or induce prescribing habit among healthcare providers...remember that...

2) The target market

In my personal experience, I had made more presentation when I promote to government and teaching institutions compared to retail markets. Not only it's required of me to make more presentation, as in group presentations as hospital rep, it's very crucial too. Imagine trying to catch every doctors or pharmacists down the hallway against calling everybody in for a quick 30 minutes to 40 minutes presentation -- which is more effective? You can figure that out yourself, right?

 But here's a caveat: Some pharmaceutical companies do not allow reps to present. Presentations are carried out by product physicians or product managers. The reason for this is that it is inappropriate for reps to present clinical data. It could be competency issue, or it could be ethical issue. But so far, I'm the one making presentation on behalf of the company. If I were to wait for product people or physician then it might take me years before I can run one!

What Else You Need to Know?

The material for your presentation usually comes in the form of slides (Microsoft Power Point), and video clips. It's good if you're thoroughly prepared for any presentation no matter how big or small it is. Perhaps the topic of 'how to best prepare for a presentation' be addressed in the next post. Or maybe you want to ask me to write about it?

More Pharmaceutical Sales Telephone Techniques

Before I go straight into the heart of the techniques for selling through the phone for pharmaceutical sales reps, there's a few things that we need to be clear. Perhaps, the most important thing I want you know is this: Phone selling, ideally, is not meant to close a sale for a rep (well, if you know my attitude towards closing then you know that I don't believe in it!). It's the initial step to secure an appointment with a prospect where you can sit down and meet face to face. That's the objective.

Plus, here's an article which I wrote a few years back, and I strongly believe very much relevant today: Selling on the phone is tough business. I'm not discounting phone selling but it's good to get the heads up, right?

In fact, in my years of pharmaceutical sales career, the only time when I used the phone is when I'm following up a call, securing future appointment, clarifying immediate issue with long distance customers, or something similar. I had never once use phone to secure an order. Is this a sign of incompetence?

Well, consider this article I wrote about telephone sales training tips.

So, what do you think? Does that make sense? And to top it all, I have list some simple tips if you must use the telephone to increase your sales. Perhaps, this is not something that you can achieve in a single sitting but depending on your product and industry, even if it's outside pharmaceuticals, you can implement them and yields the benefits nonetheless: Improving tele-selling sales script.

Leave your thought below. I'd like to see how masters of the mouthpiece respond to this info :)

My Recommended Resources For Pharmaceutical Sales Jobs Search

Here's the thing: I wrote about steps to becoming pharmaceutical sales rep, and in one of the steps (Step 1 I believe), I touched on searching for a suitable position in the right Pharma company. One of the fastest and most convenient way to do job search is through online portal.

Now, given the current market condition, it's my believe that no online job portals are not created equal. Some are good for certain jobs and others just not going to cut it. For jobs with pharmaceutical companies, here are 2 portals which I'm using with relatively high degree of success (in order of importance):

JobsDB.com

Online job portal use something which is called 'matching' criteria to link you to relevant positions with registered companies. I'm not really sure how the portal deals specifically with companies and how they include them but so far, this particular portal is pretty good with their matching.

Jobstreet.com

This portal used to stay on top of my list but when I was introduced to the previous portal, I admit that the matching criteria for the first one is somewhat superior. What causes this? I don't really know but what's important to me is I got what I intend to do initially: To get to the right position with the right company.

If you're thinking of starting with your job search for pharma companies then I suggest you go and check these portals out. After that, if you got anything to share, feel free to use the comment box.

Hope this help :)