When I was a rep in the late 80’s, it was a pretty awesome job to get – I was the envy of everyone I knew. Scroll forward 20 years – I see a sales rep who lives in our neighborhood, donning his suit with an optimistic smile on his handsome face and all I feel is pity. There are now over 90,000 sales reps doing their best to push their product on doctors who just don’t want to hear it. Over 50% of the reps are viewed as “sample carriers” and get less than a minute with the doctor. Sales reps get adequate time to discuss their brand with the doctor just 16% of the time.
Non-personal selling is going to become the center of most brand plans – because you don’t need a warm body to drop off samples and deliver brand information – especially if they aren’t able to connect to the doctor anyway. For the big launches, I have no doubt that reps will be deployed to spread the good word – it makes sense – they have new information to share and the doctor will be receptive. For mature brands or brands with no new information to share with the doctor, for that poor rep’s sake and for your brand’s sake, think non-personal selling.
Source: RepReviewsm Pharma 2007
When I was working at McKinsey & Company, their credo was posted on the wall of every conference room. Part of this credo was (I paraphrase), “You have the responsibility to say no”. Basically, from the bottom up, employees are encouraged to speak up if something isn’t sitting right with them. It’s not about finding fault, it’s more about each team-member taking responsibility for the entire project. Having this attitude on a team fosters a more flat management structure and fosters unity on the team. The flip-side of this credo is that if no one speaks up about a project’s shortcomings, then they have the responsibility to fully support it. While we encourage our internal team-members to speak up when something isn’t working for them, we are also going to try to say, “No” more to our clients.
It appears that suddenly, every pharma company has finally realized that there is a HUGE missed opportunity in marketing to doctors that reps aren’t calling on regularly, or at all. Doctors who don’t receive brand information and samples WON’T support a brand…period. If you are a brand manager who is losing rep support, or a smaller brand trying to gain a share of voice – creating an eSource Center, an online brand web site with all brand assets and online sampling is the way to level the playing field. Tie in mobile sampling, some clever, timely relationship marketing and you can gain market share, especially by reaching out to the long-neglected nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
I received this email yesterday – since this clearly is NOT a good example of an email campaign – not only did I receive an unsolicited email, they threatened me with an unwanted call as well (actually, today at 11:00 a.m. they called my PRIVATE cell phone to pimp their services…now that is really pushing the limits!) And the visual? Wow, that’s really creepy. Let this be a horrible warning.
The email breaks so many rules, it’s not even funny. First there’s the issue of the copy being in the form of an image. If someone blocks the image, no message. Then there’s the use of a copyrighted image, and the subject line itself borders on spam.
If you want someone to communicate with you, be friendly and direct and keep it simple. Perhaps just a simple introductory email from this particular vendor would be more helpful.
————————————–
Subject: Introducing X Company
Message: We’d like to set up a meeting with you to discuss our services which are…
Sincerely,
Vendor
Phone
Email
Mailing Address
[removal instructions]
————————–
That’s it. A simple message requesting a brief conversation and no creepy image from the Hobbit. No negative response and at least a chance of a positive outcome.
I am a huge fan of Seth Godin – he is a marketing GOD. I greatly enjoy his blog – it gives me things to think about daily. One of the things he pondered in a blog posting at the end of 2007 was a very simple question:
Why not be great?
The choice is yours – in how you work, in the vendors you choose, in the risks you take. We chose – in 2008, our goal is to be great.
Pushing the Interesting Peanut Forward
Don’t get me wrong, 2007 was a terrific year – we moved into an awesome office in a wild, cool neighborhood, we got a bunch of new clients – what do I have to bitch about? The programs we sold were fine – but the ones we really loved – the ones we got most excited about – the ones that could actually push the peanut forwardâ¦no takers. “How many other companies have done this” – do you really WANT all of your competitors to be running the same programs?
If I could post a Craigslist ad for a client, here’s how it would read:
Wanted: Gutsy, edgy, out-there client who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone is doing, but wants to figure out how to blast their brand out of the water – strategically smart, reaching for the edges kind of ideas are welcome – and no boxes required.
Does anyone in pharma fit that description?
