Valeant reps are useless

I recently had 2 open territories as my company is expanding. I had 7 Valeant reps interview at one point. None of them could explain to me, or show me, how they were successful when their main product wasn't being given away for free. Valeant reps are damaged goods because all they can do is sell on free scripts.

 

It could be coincidence. Maybe valid for some but I would bet a lot that majority of sales force in Europe that came with acquired companies was good. No free scripts. Question is how many of them has left already.

 

tell us something we don't know. we are entitled and bitter. don't mess with us. we get screwed at just about every end. I'm applying for a job at mcdonalds. at these that job will kill you slowly.

 

Clearly you interviewed the wrong Valeant reps then. I'm not disputing Valeant reps are "damaged goods" but I'm pretty sure that's not the reason why. It's common sense: sell on benefits, not price. Sell on price and you'll never win - even if it is 0 copay. Docs don't give a isht if the product is free if you haven't sold them clinically. Valeant may have a tough road ahead of them in the PR department but they still have the most clinically efficacious products in the marketspace by far. That is a FACT (at least with my product line). I'm sorry the reps you interviewed were unable to convey that to you but please don't judge us all by our weakest links.

BTW, if you think Valeant reps are so stupid and beneath you, why did you waste your time interviewing them? And then take the time to come post about it on CafePharma? Kind of makes it seem like THEY aren't the stupid ones. Just sayin'...

 

Valeant reps are young and naive as hell. Look at all the new hires the past 2 yrs. a good few left for better companies I don't blame them but most lack any real industry experience or clinical acumen. Check out their LinkedIn accounts and majors in college. Most humanities and communications majors. Only a handful have any real science degrees or business degrees. I would agree. Valeant reps are useless and dumb as heck.

 

Touché! Brilliant response and question to the original poster. Very rare on this site.

 

quite a narrow-minded opinion maybe you need to ask a more intelligent question next time when you are interviewing or look beyond the reps time with Valeant. Do you even know what was happening at Valeant or what the reps had to deal with in the field representing such an unethical company? Get a clue before you judge!

 

Unbelieveable! FYI -l the Valeant Psych Team representatives were 50 of the "best in class" sales professionals with integrity, ethical values and highly educated! Valeant was very fortunate to have such a reputable team of experienced individuals - their loss!

 

Let me provide some insight from a managers perspective...in the hiring process we only selected candidates with previous pharma/specialty sales experience, proven track record of performance and preferably with a solid reputation built with HCPs in their territory. We knew their jobs wouldn't be easy as we were attempting a new program with Philidor (which failed not due to reps but to pharma industry controversy) next we asked these talented reps to instead promote with the same old sales model/dog-pony show intead until a new mail order program was available. Some dedicated reps remained on but after Q2 only 12 out of 50 were still with Valeant which yes was our loss but we did it to ourselves. There was pressure on reps to sell without proper materials just PI's at times, continual product messaging changes and target HCP revisions along with a copay card program that had revisions upon revisions ex $0, $100, $5 which only confused, irritated and deterred reps from solidifying relationships and growing sales - our apologies to the Psyc Sales Team.

 

THANK YOU FOR STATING THE TRUTH!

 

Most of us in the industry for any period of time have held to deal with adversity somewhat similar to this (selling off PI's, changes to targeting, IC plans, confusing consumer savings programs)
Anyone can sell / make $ when the product is given away... It's a bit more challenging when you have to convince a dr to write something that a patient is actually going to have to pay for.