Everyone is reexamining the role of the rep right now. The hottest issue seems to be how to handle vacant territories, white spaces and temporary vacancies.  Let’s say one of your reps goes to Maui for 6 weeks, or you undergo a general downsizing-your competition is still on the job and you risk losing market share,a situation few companies can afford.

The cure?  Treat situations like this as disease and introduce the concept of “inoculation.”  There are several proven and emerging models to help manage territories better. Simple things can be introduced, which provide better planning for this eventuality, like getting your reps to work on enrolling their physicians in alternative sampling programs before you have a vacant territory. Prepare your sales forces – and their territories, in the event there is a void created by vacation, illnesses, maternity leaves, firings or restructuring.
If you work with your reps to register all their key physicians within an alternative sampling program, when a territory is vacated the District Manager could literally “flip a switch” and instantly have the territory covered by the alternative sampling program (online and/or mobile). When a rep is available to take the territory back, the system can introduce the new rep and continue to provide coverage to outlying physicians in the territory, seamlessly working the rep back into the equation.

For white spaces or outlying docs who are not top-decile but who you need to engage or they’ll defect on you in a heartbeat.  Sometimes that doc just needs another way to connect to the brand. For physicians who are non-targeted, outliers or in white spaces, an alternative sampling program can also invite them in (via email, phone call, etc), enroll them, and provide ongoing samples and brand information via the channel of their choice including mobile.

Physicians need consistency in the brand relationship and that’s something that is becoming possible through alternative sampling, given a host of tools to help support reps and empty-territory situations. If you don’t get the rep involved, your chances of getting physicians involved in the program are slim. Reps can harness the power of alternative sampling programs to better manage their territory and grow share – the whole idea is to keep the rep involved, just in a smarter way.