This is especially true when it is straight up with no ulterior motive. We recently got amazing feedback from a client who chose us for a lot of great reasons. When asking for feedback, I always ask how we can do better. Ah. That’s where it gets interesting. Their feedback was essentially, that they liked us and they chose us because we approachable, knowledgeable, different, casual, informal. Moving forward, the feedback was that we should be more formal and a bit less casual. Hmmm.

Our clients and our competition acknowledge that we are market leaders but at what point should we suit up, lawyer up, and basically act like our competitors? How would we be different then?

I donated all of my suits to the Hope Program before we left NY, so I’m kind of screwed there. Although I do like our lawyers a lot, I’m not sure we need them at our meetings. I think we are in the process “buttoning up” in our own way, but we’ll still stick to our core values (and wardrobe) and keep winning new business.

I read one of Seth Godin’s posting on “15% Changes Everything” and what I remembered was that we have a healthy line of products – stepping up those sales would give us the cash to bootstrap the new idea. We got right on it – and are already seeing results.

We are also doing our reviews and revising our goals – again, all focused on where we want to take our business. If you don’t bust out the road map and make sure you are going where you want to go, it probably won’t happen.

“Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you’ll win. Channel your energy. Focus”. – Carol Lewis

Three blind men are put into a room with an elephant and are asked to identify the object in the room. The first man touches the trunk and says “oh, it’s a snake” – the second man touches an ear and says “oh, it’s a leaf” – the third man touches a trunk and says, “no, it’s a tree”. The moral: everyone “sees” what is closest to them and in many cases it is “what they know.”

Few folks in pharma are looking at social media and mobile media from a holistic standpoint – they are focusing on what they know or feel comfortable with, thereby missing the big picture.

I’m not claiming to be able to identify the elephant at this point, but I can sure tell you that from a healthcare professional perspective, the sum of mobile and social media are far bigger than the parts.

So, last Friday I really cut down my list of folks I was following on Twitter – some were just not my cup of tea. When I was a newbie, I followed everyone and frankly, some are a helluva lot more interesting to ME than others. That being said, I was blasted by an individual for “announcing” my list culling. My initial reaction was “boo hoo, whatever.” Then I started thinking how interesting it was that in all the noise that this person is exposed to, one cyber-diss (of the 22,000 people following them) upset them. Why would you expect that 100% of 22,000 would love every tweet you send out?

So, I gave it thought and here is my conclusion: if my blogs, tweets, pings, updates, etc. don’t interest you, cool. Dump me. I have a message I am trying to get out to my professional audience – I won’t be awesome or even relevant 100% of the time, but you have a choice to make in who you spend time with (even virtually).

I actually was thinking about my relationships with pharma and pharma brands this morning on my run. I didn’t really think I had a personal relationship with pharma or brands, but that is not true.  Yeah, I’ve worked in pharma 22 years, but the real relationship is that pharma has kept my mother and my brothers alive – they all have familial hypercholesterolemia – total cholesterol over 750. Bottom line, without meds they would all have died from heart attacks. Funny that I never really thought of pharma in those terms, but I’m sure grateful that Lipitor and Crestor have kept my family going. Will I “friend” AZ and Pfizer – probably not – will I blog about the meds and how it changed the course of life in my family – you bet. Which is more powerful??

We can do better pharma – figure it out.

While the number of sales reps has fallen from over 100,000 in 2005 to 81,000 in 2009, ZS Associates noted, “…certain prescribers won’t see any representatives –– and they won’t do it under any circumstances… Managers must modify the call plan to connect best with each individual physician.”

The article contains several interesting stats, but the conclusion is: Fewer doctors are seeing sales reps. That means you’d better have an alternative strategy to reach this most important target market. 

One important strategy, electronic and mobile detailing. One Eleven’s SampleServer® is a full program that will help get your drug in front of docs and get them asking for samples. Call us for more information.

The primary lesson for pharma? Social media is just another essential marketing tactic. Either use it or get left behind. 

Social media not the be-all, end-all. It won’t necessarily transform the pharmaceutical industry’s image overnight. And it won’t necessarily help sell more product.

But social media gives the pharmaceutical a new marketing channel. A very important marketing channel that requires thinking about marketing differently. It’s not top-down marketing. It requires listening. It requires interacting with customers. It requires being able to handle negative criticism. And for now, it requires being able to regulate yourself because the FDA still hasn’t given any guidelines and probably won’t for a while.

Flo Klewin is the owner and Johanna is her marketing guru. These women could rest on their laurels – after all, business is great. But they don’t. I put a review up on Yelp, following our visit – Johanna responded to my review, thanking me for our business and asking us to return so they could “try harder”. Wow. So we went back the next day. Johanna was out front, greeting guests and deftly dealing with hordes of hungry people. I introduced myself, she knew who I was and thanked me again. We had an even better breakfast and Johanna brought over free breakfast coupons for our children for future breakfasts. I was so impressed by these people – it made me think about our customer service – what can we do to “try harder?” It was the topic at staff meeting today, and it is a priority here.

I bought a mug for my morning coffee, so I start every day thinking about great customer service and how we’ll deliver it today and every day.

Seriously, posting guards at ASCO to ensure the poor bastards from Vermont and Minnesota got nada is lunacy (and if it was me, I would have swiped my pal’s ID from Ohio). Creating change by idiotic fear-mongering is not good for anyone. Pfizer doesn’t look good, the federal gov’t looks miserly and the jonesin’ doctors are bitter – how is this a winning scenario? I am certain the good folks who penned up the guidelines did not have this in mind. And that Pfizer is posting the doctors’ names who GOT a cup of coffee on their web site? C’mon.

It is hard enough to be a doctor (hey, I passed on 2 opportunities to go to med school), but no coffee?  That’s just cruel.

Read the article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0719832620100607

Pitches, RFPs, etc. etc. – felt like we were dancing all the time – but hey, if you aren’t asked to the dance…so we danced.

And I ranted – a lot. I was tired, my team was tired – we just wanted to see some signatures!

Scroll forward to June 1st – signatures have been acquired, my friends – the peanut is moving forward! So, I am going to stop ranting (it usually means I need a vacation – which I certainly DO!) I’m turning the page, moving forward and focusing positively.

Too much great stuff happening not to have a big smile on my face!