Selling Pharmaceuticals-A Love Affair: For Medical Representatives & All Sales People

By Mumtaz Akhtar

This book is called A Love Affair basically for two reasons. The first is that I love medical representatives and wish to empower them to lead fruitful satisfying lives. I have myself worked for seventeen years as a medical representative. This book is the labour of Love and tribute for the medical representatives with whom I have been associated for thirty one years of my life.

While rewriting the book for the second time I realised and was amazed by the similarity in the way that a sales persons job must be perused and in the way a young man woos his lady love to persuade her to marry him. In fact the similarities were so wide that the book demanded to be written as A Love Affair. This rewriting of the book made it suitable for all Sales People in addition to the medical representatives, hence the title.

The second reason for calling it A Love Affair is the way that the book is written. All the aspects discussed here may be closely related to A Love Affair. Similarities occur that make the understanding of the sales process at once easy and interesting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jan 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482843132

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Copyright © 2015 by Mumtaz Akhtar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents

Preface

Who Am I?

Why Me?

What This Book Will Do

Foreword

P1 A Career In Sales

P1 C1 A Love Affair

P1 C2 Pharmaceutical Selling

P1 C3 Selling Your Self

P1 C4 Building Trust

P1 C5 Job Location & Application

P1 C6 The Interview

P2 Gaining Knowledge

P2 C1 Know Your Company

P2 C2 Know Your Brands

P2 C3 Know Your Doctor

P2 C4 Know Your Doctors Chamber

P2 C5 Know Your Promotional Material

P2 C6 Know Your Time

P3 Preparation

P3 C1 Correlating Doctors And Brands

P3 C2 Preparing The Doctor’s Visit List

P3 C3 Preparing The Tour Plan

P3 C4 Preparing The Daily Work Plan

P3 C5 Preparing The Bag

P4 Field Visit

P4 C1 Common Factors In Field Visit

P4 C2 Distributor Visit

P4 C3 Retailer Visit

P4 C4 Doctor’s Visit Preparation

P4 C5 Doctor’s Visit

P4 C6 Positioning The Brand

P4 C7 Overcoming Objections

P4 C8 Offers And Incentives

P4 C9 Closing The Sale

P4 C10 Hospital Sales

P5 Related Activity

P5 C1 Writing Reports

P5 C2 Using Data

P5 C3 Meetings & Conferences

P5 C4 Introducing New Brands

P5 C5 Expiry & Breakage

P6 Must Know

P6 C1 Trust Busters

P6 C2 Confidentiality

P6 C3 Vicious Cycles

P6 C4 Road Blocks

P6 C5 The Competition

P7 Getting Promoted

P7 C1 The First Line Manager

P7 C2 Let It Be Known

P7 C3 Selling Yourself

P7 C4 Develop Leadership Qualities

P7 C5 Earning Goodwill

This Book is dedicated to all

the Sales People everywhere who rise above

their own problems everyday to help Customers

PREFACE

This book is called A Love Affair basically for two reasons. The first is that I love medical representatives and wish to empower them to lead fruitful satisfying lives. I have myself worked for seventeen years as a medical representative. This book is the labour of Love and tribute for the medical representatives with whom I have been associated for thirty one years of my life.

While rewriting the book for the second time I realised and was amazed by the similarity in the way that a sales person’s job must be perused and in the way a young man woos his lady love to persuade her to marry him. In fact the similarities were so wide that the book demanded to be written as A Love Affair. This rewriting of the book made it suitable for all Sales People in addition to the medical representatives, hence the title.

The second reason for calling it A Love Affair is the way that the book is written. All the aspects discussed here may be closely related to A Love Affair. Similarities occur that make the understanding of the sales process at once easy and interesting.

An aspect of the human personality is that every human being is a sales person right from the cradle to old age. Further most of all a person achieves in life is through persuading other people to act as he proposes.

Lastly, throughout the book the masculine gender is used for sales people and customers. It does not mean in any way that the ladies are not either the sales people or the customers.

Mumtaz Akhtar Husain

WHO AM I?

I was born in a middle class family in a year earlier than I care to remember. Feudalism was abolished early in my childhood and so were any vestiges of a feudal life style that we might have had. My father was a government employee in Lucknow where I was brought up and obtained my early education. My ancestral home in Bareilly UP was an old rambling structure where all the uncles, aunts and cousins lived under one roof. Meals were collective affairs where everybody was required to be present. The atmosphere was formal and respect to elders was a must.

I do not have very pleasant memories of my school and college days. Although never diagnosed, I suspect that I suffered from Attention deficit disorder and seldom knew what the teacher was trying to put across. Naturally the teachers were frustrated with this behaviour and their only recourse was to administer corporal punishment. My ongoing worry was that I did not know the crime for which I was being punished. Suffice it to say that I somehow managed to complete my graduation in the biology group. Thereafter I joined MSc in chemistry but soon realized that it was beyond me. So I left it and started looking for a job.

At this time due to the death of a cousin, many people at our home fell ill. It was my job to convey their condition to the Doctor and get their medicine. It is there that I saw the pharmaceutical sales people for the first time. This job immediately attracted me and I pursued the companies relentlessly till I was selected for a company known as Indian Schering. It is here that I remained for the next thirty one years. The company’s name changed to Nicholas of India Limited and thereafter to Nicholas Laboratories India Limited and finally to Nicholas Piramal India Limited. All this occurred as the owners despaired of making the company progressive and it changed hands. Now the time that was allotted to the Piramals for the use of the Company name seems to have expired and the Company is known as Piramal Health Care. The brands that were under its care were later sold by the Company to M/S Abbot Laboratories Limited; and now belong to them.

It is in Nicholas that I worked for 17 years as a Medical Representative and enjoyed my work immensely. The work involved meeting and interacting with Doctors, Distributors and Retailers to sell the company’s brands. Obviously I enjoyed a measure of success as I was thereafter promoted as a First Line Manager. I remained one for nine years and then as a side upward kick was given the post of Customer Service Manager from which I was asked to leave in 2004.

WHY ME?

Why should I write this book? What makes me so suitable to write it? The reasons are many. Foremost among them being that no such book exists at present. I felt this throughout my tenure of 17 years as a medical representative. The learning was a slow process with many mistakes. These mistakes though time consuming were a great teacher.

The first line manager is the designated person to teach and guide his medical representatives. But he is also the designated person for a number of other jobs that the senior managers of the company want done in the field. The most important job that a first line manager has is the completion of the month wise objective of each one of his medical representatives. In this scenario, coaching and mentoring often take a back seat as the first line manager is left with hardly any time to do it. In these circumstances a peculiar situation is created. The First line manager tries to pressurise the medical representative to complete his given objectives ‘any how’. This ‘any how’ results in adoption of methods that land a medical representative into vicious cycles from which it is difficult to come out. The first line manager vows to set the situation aright when he/she has the time. But there is never enough time to coach and mentor as the pressure for achieving next months objectives starts forthwith.

It is primarily to deal with a situation such as this that the book has been written. I feel that my long tenure has amply prepared me to render this service to colleagues of my erstwhile profession. The work as a first line manager exposed me to the time I needed to coach and mentor the representatives in my charge. This book is written as a help to the first line managers in their job of coaching and mentoring their medical representatives. They may provide them this book and point to the aspect of the job that they want improved. At the same time they may provide their own inputs to improve the performance of their representative. Any short coming or addition to the book may be kindly communicated to me at my e mail address [e-mail] Proper credit will be given for all material included in future editions to the book.

An example of the recognition that I received at the time of leaving the company are reproduced in the four memos reproduced below.

Lotus Note from Dr. V.K.Joshi Vice President Quality Assurance

From: V K JOSHI

To: MUMTAZ AKHTAR/LUCKNOW_CFA/PEL/IN@DOMINO

Date: 06/17/04 03:09 PM

cc:

Subject: Wishes

Dear Mumtaz,

In the next few days you will become a free bird .…… to fly as you

like, and where you like.

Your family also must be looking forward to the day when they can have you around for the whole time! Well, that is what we all work for and look forward to……………. a happy family where every one cares for the other and longs for his/her company.

I was impressed by the plans that you have drawn for making a new beginning. And I have no doubt that you will succeed in whatever you choose to do .……………. not only because you are capable of, but you are interested and involved in doing what you do.

It was my privilege to know you, and to have spent some time with you. I enjoyed it and do hope that I did not intrude too much in your schedules.

May Allah bless you, and all your near and dear ones.

With all the best wishes for a prosperous, productive, and emotionally

fulfilling future,

Yours sincerely.

Vinayak Joshi

(R)[phone], (M) 98210 43548, e-mail: [e-mail]

e mail from Mr. K. J. Shetty

From: K J SHETTY

To: MUMTAZ AKHTAR/LUCKNOW_CFA/PEL/IN@DOMINO

Date: 06/30/04 11:29

cc: SHAILENDRA BOBHATE/Nicholas Piramal/PEL/IN@DOMINO, AM RAJESH GUPTA/NPIL_CENTREPOINT/PEL/IN@DOMINO, RAMESH PRABHU/NPIL_CENTREPOINT/PEL/IN@DOMINO, RANJIV SHARMA/Nicholas Piramal/PEL/IN@DOMINO

Subject: Congratulations!

Congratulations for your successful and long tenure of 31 years with NPIL. Your contribution will always be remembered by us. Your enthusiasm and dedication to the job will remain etched in our minds.

Thanks a lot for the co-operation and support you have given to all our

colleagues in MS and Zivon during your fruitful association with us.

Wishing you all the best in your future life.

With warm regards,

K.J. Shetty

e mail from Mr. Neeraj Joshi National Sales Manager CADence division NPIL

From: NEERAJ JOSHI

To: MUMTAZ AKHTAR/LUCKNOW_CFA/PEL/IN@DOMINO

Date: 06/17/04 07:22

cc:

Subject: about your decision of starting afresh

Dear Sir,

Heard your news.

Well for me lots of good things i learned from you will continue to shape & help me in my future.

I wish you all the best for the carrer i know u would like to undertake

from now on. My regards to one and all in family.

Be healthy and fit, and we will meet.

With regards,

Neeraj Joshi

NSM CADence

Tel: Direct: 022 5663 6589

Cell: 022 38026843

e mail from Mr. Vinit Kapoor, Regional Sales Manager UP east.

From:VINIT KAPOOR

To: MUMTAZ AKHTAR/LUCKNOW_CFA/PEL/IN@DOMINO

Date:06/30/2004 12:56 PM

Subject: BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA

JANAB MUMTAZ SAHEB,

ADAB,

With the culmination of every old era one thing that naturally happens is that it gives way to a new and generally brighter era.

In your case, as I have known you for last 12 year, I am sure it is going to be brighter and more challenging one. I have known you as a young man who always carries a positive aura around him (I am still at a loss to understand how do you manage that). On personal front I have learnt a lot from you but a lot to learn is still desired which will always push me towards you. So, no sigh of relief as yet. You are a man graduated from the' University of Hard Knocks' and i am sure that you are now going to knock the life very hard and emerge victorious yet again.

A couplet for you to express my feelings for you,

APNE APNE HOUSLE APNI TALAB KI BAAT HAI,

CHUN LIYA HAMNE TUMHE SARA JAHAN RAHNE DIYA.

Wishing you a challenging career ahead.

ALLAH HAFIZ

Regards,

VINIT KAPOOR

Mobile No: 0522-3254546

E- Mail: [e-mail]

These memos demonstrate the recognition and the love and affection that I received from all of my colleagues and superiors that I feel impelled to continue guiding the people I care for as long as I am able.

WHAT THIS BOOK WILL DO

This book is meant to provide a complete overview of the job of a Medical Representative. It is divided into seven parts that broadly cover

• Placement                     Part 1

• Preparation                   Parts 2 & 3

• Performance                   Part 4

• Para (Related) Information Part 5 & 6

• Promotion                     Part 7

It shows the way to

• Young graduates both female and male who wish to adopt sales as a career

• People already in the sales profession who wish to improve their performance

• First Line Managers who wish to guide the sales people reporting to them

• All employees of any organization as their ultimate job is to help the sales people achieve the company’s objectives

• All business management students as a guide to sales and the process of sales

For the young graduates who wish to adopt pharmaceutical sales as a career, this book is a complete guide. As mentioned above, its various parts help the aspirant in landing a job in a good company in the shortest possible time. It guides them in the preparation to be made before venturing into the field. Part 4 regarding field visit, its purpose and method. Further parts contain important related information, so essential in doing a job well. Veterans are not liked at any post in the sales profession. So before a person becomes a veteran, the last part shows the methods and techniques to get promoted to the post of first line manager.

People already in the profession may improve their performance by reviewing their working through the book. They will find that taking the proper route to achieve an objective is infinitely better to achieving long lasting results rather than resorting to shortcuts. The chapter on vicious cycles and whirlpools may make them aware of the pitfalls they may have fallen into and how to come out of them. This may well put them on the path to high achievements and promotion.

First Line managers will find the book invaluable as it takes care of the training part of their work. They just need to point to the part that they want their representative to read and follow and their work is done. Of course they may have to point out any variation their company may be practicing of the basic methods given here. This leaves them with adequate time to attend to the more important aspect of their work that is sales. Here also they will get help in demonstrating how the process of sales is to be conducted and their objective when they are in the production mode. This is the time when their representative is Face to Face with the Doctor.

All employees of all organisations that work through front line sales people need to know about the nature of the sales person’s job. It is their job to help the sales person achieve the company’s objectives. They have to assure that the sales person gets

• Their salary and expense reimbursement on time

• Their promotional plan and material promptly

• Their stockists and distributors do not run out of the company’s brands

• The distributors receive their expiry breakage and other claims on time

• There are more than one stock point so that either one or the other is adequately stocked

This book will make all the departments aware of the ways they can adopt to help the sales person in their day to day work.

The student of business studies will lose their phobia of the sales profession by going through this book. They will realise that the job of a sales person is very similar to the way A Love Affair is conducted. Through this action they will naturally know the path to follow when ever a situation demands a decision on their part. They will find the book useful in the fields of Customer Service, Sales, and Supply chain management. The vicious cycles highlighted will help them to avoid taking shortcuts and will prevent them from falling into pitfalls.

FOREWORD

A Love Affair is new and highly potent effort of an experienced sales person aiming at total empowerment of all those who want to make a promising career in sales. Mr. Mumtaz Akhtar has been a keen learner and a passionate trainer. This book is an expression of his keen desire to motivate and develop future sales people who by following the crisp lessons of the book will not only make a great career in the business organizations but will also lead tension free and highly satisfying lives.

While there is no dearth of literature on selling and salesmanship, this book is entirely different in terms of its presentation, contents and their articulation. In the business organizations, A Love Affair must prove to be a great help for the first line managers who have the responsibilities of coach and mentor for their sales representatives. All people gather experience as the time passes but Mr. Mumtaz Akhtar has thoroughly learnt the best lessons during his rich experience in various roles and has been shaping his learning in to training modules for the prospective sales people. A Love Affair is about total customer orientation and strategic positioning to win the hearts of those who buy and all those who facilitate the buying process.

The contents of the book are arranged in a logical sequence, best suited to the learning process of the young graduates. The communication is straight, crisp and simple. The book should prove to be a practical guide for young people embarking on a sales career, should provide conceptual clarity about the basic sales related issues to the students and should arm the coaches and trainers in preparing their session.

I sincerely hope that this book on one hand must inspire the people to take up the selling assignment passionately like a love affair with the current and prospective customers and on the other hand it will prove to be a practical guide for preparation of all functions related to facilitating sales.

Professor Rajendra Bharti

Director

Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology

Bareilly 243001

Before joining LBSIMT Professor Bharti worked as a manager in the banking industry for 14 years

P1 A CAREER IN SALES

A career in sales is one of the best options available to the job hunters today. It offers a fast track growth opportunity to the incumbent. The right person can rise very fast in the hierarchy. There are simply no limits to the heights that you can achieve by gaining knowledge and hard work. It is important that you make the effort to do the job assigned to you well. When you become competent in it, the next post comes your way. And you start the process of labour and learning once again for the level above that.

There exist many erroneous perceptions is society about the sales profession. One of them is about the degree of labour required to accomplish the job. Second is that you cannot sell unless you mislead the customer. Another one tells about the lack of security of job. As you go through Part 1 you will learn that these are misconceptions and nothing else. A good sales person is an asset to the company and has to be retained at all costs.

The sales profession is very different from what it appears to an outsider. From the outside it appears to be a carefree job with freedom to move and work as and when you desire. Nothing can be further from the truth. The fact is that to be a successful sales person a great deal of planning and discipline is required. You have to recognise the sales person that is in every one of us and harness the attributes to turn your self into a successful livewire performer. All this needs discipline and planned hard work. The rewards of this labour are far more than are available in a number of other professions.

There is a difference in selling to a once in a while buyer and a buyer who is a regular consumer of large quantities of an item. The latter are the professional buyers whose knowledge of the product, prices and the terms of purchase preclude any attempt at misleading them. Doctors make decisions first for the product and then for the brand of the product that their patient will buy. This decision they make for one patient after another and everyday that they sit in their chambers to treat patients.

To persuade the Doctors to act as you wish you must know the definition of sales. Further you must learn how to develop RELATIONSHIP and TRUST of the Doctors in your own self. This RELATIONSHIP and TRUSTWORTHINESS are the key factors in selling pharmaceuticals. The Doctor will only choose that brand to cure his patient in which he has confidence and which he TRUSTS. These attributes will come only from a Confident and TRUSTWORTHY Sales person.

This building of TRUST is achieved by selling yourself. Before the doctor develops Confidence and TRUST in your brand he has to have Confidence and TRUST in you. Once you are accepted as such it is easier for the Doctor to prescribe your brand - that is to act as you desire. The right words, actions and deeds are the tools for developing TRUST of the Doctor.

For a great career in pharmaceutical selling choose a good company. Having selected the company, send an application for the post and then sell yourself to the interviewer to select you above the other applicants for the post.

Here is wishing you THE BEST OF LUCK.

P1 C1 A Love Affair

Selling Pharmaceuticals or any other commodity is like conducting A Love Affair. Just imagine that you are trying to persuade your girlfriend to marry you. In this situation you will pass through various situations to arrive at your goal. Conducting such an affair would involve a large degree of preparation and self-development. There will be moments of intense happiness as well as of heartbreak. Your rivals will come in the way and other people will try to mislead you as well as her from the path that you wish to follow. Coming out victorious in the end would justify all the effort that you made. The reward will be a loving and devoted wife who will take care of the needs of you and your family as well as of the future generation.

Let us call you as the Lover and the girl as the Beloved. Often there are other suitors who have the same objective as you and who are as good if not better than you are. As the Beloved has not as yet decided whom she will marry there is rivalry among both of you as to whom the lady will choose as her life partner.

In this situation you have to consider as to how you will go about achieving your objective of persuading the lady to say ‘Yes’ when you pop the question. Also you have to consider as to how you will hold her to her promise of accepting you as a life partner and that your rival or rivals may also know that her decision has already been made.

1. When you fall in love with her your first thought will be that she should like and love you. For this you may have to study her likes and dislikes and then mould yourself accordingly.

2. Firstly you will have to mould yourself as per her likes and dislikes in clothes. May be you like to wear jeans and T shirt most of the time but if her liking is for formal clothes you may have to buy yourself a whole new wardrobe and that also in the colours of her choice.

3. You will find out the best time in which she is free and willing to talk to you. This time you will always hold sacred and not let any other activity encroach upon it. You may have to get up in the middle of the night to accomplish some of your other commitments but the time at which you have to meet her remains sacred and out of reach for all other activities.

4. You will always be looking your best and fresh when you meet her. Your nails will be cut, your shoes well polished and your face beaming to give the best impression.

5. You will have to consider her other suitors who are also trying for her hand in marriage.

6. You will have to find ways and means to project yourself as a better life partner than them to win her affections.

7. She may be reluctant to say yes due to a number of reasons. The reasons and doubts may have been put in her mind by your rivals or they may be evident to her by her own observation. These reasons she may tell you or hide from you and keep putting you off by citing reasons that are wholly unrelated to the actual ones.

8. You will have to probe to find out and remove the actual doubts from her mind before you can propose to her again.

9. You will make a special effort to once again approach her in your best attire with the best intentions and actions in surroundings that suit the occasion to get her to say yes to your proposal.

10. As soon as she says ‘Yes’ you will pull out the ring from your pocket and slip it on her finger to seal the relationship. This sealing of the relationship will tell all people including your rivals of her commitment to marry you.

The above sequence describes exactly the process of sales. It is how sales are to be done. Each of the points above may be related to real life sales process and has to be dealt with in exactly the same way. Thus whenever you fail to persuade your customer to take action as you desire you only have to refer to the love process to learn where you went wrong and take corrective action. Broadly, when you are in the sales profession

1. You have to select the right customers and find out everything about them.

2. You will have to develop your appearance and body language as per the desire of the customer.

3. You will find out the best time when the customer will be happy to meet you for a face to face interaction and will hold this time sacred and more important than any other work you have to do

4. Your appearance, grooming, smile and over all getup will be geared to make a stunning impression.

5. You will find out everything about the competitive brands and keep rebuttal material ready

6. You will position your own brand as the best brand available to fulfil the needs of the customer

7. You will find out the objections, whether spoken or hidden, against your brand that the customer may have, and remove them.

8. If the customer still does not say yes to your proposal you will try to find out if some hidden objections are left and remove them

9. You will again make an all out approach with all preparation to make the customer agree.

10. You will close the sale by asking for an order, writing the order and getting them to sign it.

When you decide to be a part of the sales profession, you have to woo and win different mistresses at different times. The first one you have to woo and win is the company you wish to join. Here too you have to choose very carefully. You would not like to be deceived into marriage with an inappropriate life partner. It is your beloved and your customer. To be allowed to join it you will have to go through all the processes described above.

Once appointed you have to go through the process again. Here the selection of customers is no less than that of a life partner. Only a suitable customer will give you adequate business. Again the process to be followed is the same as that given above. The same attention and enthusiasm is required by each customer. Whenever you fail to be enthusiastic about any customer and do not give enough attention be sure your rival from the company marketing competitive brands will move in.

Thus you have to keep two sets of customers happy. These are the so called ‘Gharwali’ and the ‘Baharwali’. The ‘Gharwali’ is the internal customer. These are your boss and other managers of the company. They are instrumental in appointing you in the first place and later on they are the one’s who will decide about your promotions. You have to behave with them in exactly the same way as you would with any other customer. Any lapse on your part will result in your rival for appointment and promotion moving in and getting ahead of you.

In your first post as the sales person, the ‘Baharwali’ customer is the Doctor. You have to woo all the selected customers with all the enthusiasm, attention and technique to win them over. At the same time you have to keep their commitment towards you so high that your competitors do not make inroads into your territory.

As you proceed to study this book, whatever chapter you are going through, keep the ‘A Love Affair’ in mind.

What is the definition of sale?

Sales may be defined as ‘Desired Action Taken by an Individual or Group through Your Persuasion’

For the desired action to occur, you have to be very clear about your objective. In a love affair your objective may be to persuade your girlfriend to agree to marry you. Here you will prepare and persuade as per your objective. If your desire is only for the Doctor to listen to you, you may persuade him to do so, however if your desire is to persuade him to accept your brand for prescription, you may use a different method of persuasion. Thus the importance of having a clear objective is highlighted. Clear Objective and focussed effort with adequate preparation is required to persuade a person to act as you desire.

In the definition sales occurs when the Desired Action is taken. It is not you who has to take the action. Your job is to Persuade. It is the action taken by the Customer that will result in sales. You must ensure that the action is in no way less than what you desire

Who is a Competent Sales Person?

The answer to this question is ‘Every One’. Each one of us is a born Sales Person equipped by nature to be a Super Sales Person all our lives. So much so that we do not wait to learn to talk or walk, but start selling from the cradle itself. When in our infancy, right after birth, if we felt hungry we let out a wail and were immediately attended to.