How many PSS in PC actually hit their target bonus quaterly

[Anonymous]

Here's my advice to you: Work your territory for a while (say 2-3 months) and gain a sense of your customer base and accessibility. At that point, you should be able to group into buckets the different clinician targets. It will look something like this:

1st bucket - low decile docs who are accessible. Good for field rides

2nd bucket - high decile docs that are important for the business who are increasingly accessible the more you provide to them (ie. lunch)

3rd bucket - No see doctors

4th bucket - Docs that hate your guts, your companies guts, or your products guts.

5th bucket - PA's and NP's who work in one of the afformentioned practices who actually SEE YOU. Valuable because the Doc may not.

Be realistic about it. Banging your head against the whole repeatedly to try and change the prescribing habits of someone in the 3rd of 4th bucket will just leave you going absolutely insane. Better off focusing your efforts on the first two.

Also, there are some "macro" things you can do that sometimes can shift market share in a positive way in your territory. When I was a rep, a big focus of mine was to make sure pharmacists had demo inhalers to show their patients how to deliver the pressurized metered dose inhalation therapy. Symbicort is a friendly delivery for asthmatics because it is the same as a rescue medicine, and the pharmacist is there to illustrate that. Focus on mom and pop pharmacies with scarce resources like demo inhalers, because they are the ones more likely to actually give a sh*t.

Max out all of your AZ promo stuff -- order all of it. It makes you look good. Then, go to every pharmacy you see and just dump the stuff with the pharmacist. Make sure every pharmacy in your territory has savings cards for your product, free vouchers, patient lit, etc. This is really important in my view, for 2 reasons:
1) It breaks up the monotony of your routing, by sending you off the beaten path into the pharmacy
2) It helps track all of your precious scripts, helps to prevent the pharmacist from generic switching (not always, but sometimes) and also gives you firepower when a Doc says, "patient went to the pharmacy and it was too expensive". You can then ask, "what pharmacy?" and then you've either been there or you haven't. Either way, you have a response and that not longer becomes a smoke screen or a common objection by the doctor.

Best case scenario, a patient goes into the pharmacy, pharmacist hands the patient some lit, demonstrates via some resource you provided them,a nd then helps them with the copay with a card. Then, patient goes back to the doc and tells them about that great experience. Thats the "holy grail". Does it happen frequently? Hell no. But if you plaster your territory with this stuff, you improve your changes exponentially.

Finally, with large decile docs, establish a ritual with something. Go every week at 9 am on a tuesday or thursday or whenever. Meet the doc when he opens the door for business with coffee or fruit. Especially if its multi-doctor office, rotate the docs your putting on your sheet. If you show up every week, that Doc will eventually notice you at the very least.

I consider myself to be an extremely talented sales person, and despite that, in my couple of years at AZ I never came close to circle of excellence or presidents award. I've moved on to a new career now, but I do acknowledge that I was selling a statin in a highly genericized market where our MS was close to 20% baseline, and despite that my partner and I moved share for the company (in absolute terms by a truckload, in marketshare terms, marginally). But, the above things did have at least a marginal impact on my business, and I think they could be helpful to you too. Remember, half of pharma is just SHOWING UP, another 25% is smiling and NOT talking product, and then the last 25% is thinking of ways to present your product information with credibility, in haste, making in relevant to their practice and in a way that doesn't bore your customer to tears. Make sure you keep up on the sociology of medicine in your community too, as customers want to know latest happenings in ACO's and PCMH's. The economics of medicine is interesting for everyone, including your customers.

I used to work for AZ but now work for Humana. This is such an intelligent post. I hope the author is successful in their new role, sounds like you have the drive and intelligence to do well wherever you go. Spot on about the challenges selling in this environment and good luck to those looking to move on.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I saw the writing on the wall and left on my own terms a year and a half ago. Out of pharma/ med device sales, but still in the industry -- which is great, because I love it.

The sad thing is I probably would have stayed at AZ until the whole thing imploded too -- if not for the directionless nature of the leadership. There are alot of really smart people at AZ -- the problem is they are all walking toward the door (or have already done so)

 

[Anonymous]

I hit my bonus every time while I was at AZ. Left for better pay and a more formal sales role outside the industry. Loved my time at AZ, I had two great managers and one crappy one. But i made over 40 k in my two years at AZ in bonuses.

Good luck!