What the hell happened to us??

[Anonymous]

Class of 1982 speaking here. All you stated are correct. The Ken and Barbie influx simply contribute to this whole mess. Bringing in "good-looking" people with no brain is not gong to stop the downward slide of everything you have stated.

This is all part of the conversion of pharmaceutical sales towards a bribery model and away from a model that required true substance. Call it Pfizerizing or whatever. Bribery was via gifts, gratuities, subsidies, free-flow samples, food, meetings, or eye candy. But once prostituted, it is hard to make a break and go back to virtue. Unfortunately, virtue means that you fight for the pipeline and actually care about the bottom line by managing professionally and intelligently. Pharma leadership has only cared about the top line for so long that it no longer knows how to properly manage the entire account stack.

Your leaders for years have been people like Rick Lane and Fred Hassan and Carrie Cox who were edified by Wall Street. Now you have lawyers in an attempt to plug the billion-dollar holes that these salesmen created.

 

[Anonymous]

"Flooding the sales force with college grads transformed the rich corporate culture of the sales force over night into one big frat/sorority party. Many of these 'pups" made DM and higher nearly overnight."

Sad joke that is still happening. Some of these all grown up managers still frat/sorority kids. Its a big fat joke, pup managers coaching 20 year reps who could write the manual on selling, coaching and managing.

 

[Anonymous]

"Flooding the sales force with college grads transformed the rich corporate culture of the sales force over night into one big frat/sorority party. Many of these 'pups" made DM and higher nearly overnight."

Sad joke that is still happening. Some of these all grown up managers still frat/sorority kids. Its a big fat joke, pup managers coaching 20 year reps who could write the manual on selling, coaching and managing.

My manager one day said why I treated him as a baggage during a field visit. I told him he was getting in my way and making selling situation awkward. He was in the seat where I usually place the laptop. Now I have to hold the laptop in such an unnatural way and type like a contortionist. As i tried to retrieve samples he kept talking and I lost count over and over and he still kept going. F**k that sh*t. Then I, being a 30-year veteran, was having a great disease-centered product discussion with a customer I know for 20 years and he jumped in and modeled how to close it!

 

[Anonymous]

You hired Alina Erhlich and Tom Lyon. Failure complete.

 

[Anonymous]

My manager one day said why I treated him as a baggage during a field visit. I told him he was getting in my way and making selling situation awkward. He was in the seat where I usually place the laptop. Now I have to hold the laptop in such an unnatural way and type like a contortionist. As i tried to retrieve samples he kept talking and I lost count over and over and he still kept going. F**k that sh*t. Then I, being a 30-year veteran, was having a great disease-centered product discussion with a customer I know for 20 years and he jumped in and modeled how to close it!

Get ready to leave with the rest of us. At least you have a truckload of money waiting. No tears just move on.

 

[Anonymous]

My manager one day said why I treated him as a baggage during a field visit. I told him he was getting in my way and making selling situation awkward. He was in the seat where I usually place the laptop. Now I have to hold the laptop in such an unnatural way and type like a contortionist. As i tried to retrieve samples he kept talking and I lost count over and over and he still kept going. F**k that sh*t. Then I, being a 30-year veteran, was having a great disease-centered product discussion with a customer I know for 20 years and he jumped in and modeled how to close it!

You actually made my day. I am laughing because this is so damn descriptive. What a joke. Hey, Merck, keep those trust and value scores coming! I want to know when Merck is really serious about being a drug company again. I will know it when they get rid of at least 1/2 the middle managers and useless field management. Why do we have a totally fragmented sales model? My value came from having deep clinical discussions. Anything published and peer reviewed was fair game. Then I could go to pharmacy and talk about savings with varous contracts or buy/prescribing patterns. Forget that now. My hands are so tied by compliance there is NO selling. I can go discuss something but no doctor anymore is going to listen to a close. If you do that, they will simply agree and blow you off. Your boss is an ignorant ass. My heart goes out to you. But don't feel too badly, all this is coming to an end in probably less than five years.

 

[Anonymous]

What the hell happened to us?

Merck happened to us.

 

[Anonymous]

You actually made my day. I am laughing because this is so damn descriptive. What a joke. Hey, Merck, keep those trust and value scores coming! I want to know when Merck is really serious about being a drug company again. I will know it when they get rid of at least 1/2 the middle managers and useless field management. Why do we have a totally fragmented sales model? My value came from having deep clinical discussions. Anything published and peer reviewed was fair game. Then I could go to pharmacy and talk about savings with varous contracts or buy/prescribing patterns. Forget that now. My hands are so tied by compliance there is NO selling. I can go discuss something but no doctor anymore is going to listen to a close. If you do that, they will simply agree and blow you off. Your boss is an ignorant ass. My heart goes out to you. But don't feel too badly, all this is coming to an end in probably less than five years.

Merck is no longer interested in using personally-delivered technical information to sell products. It leads to situations where Merck cannot predict the outcome, especially since Merck has diluted their salesforce with talent that cannot perform this type of support. While their excuse is that abandoment of this model is compliance-driven, Merck has not actively defended its use and there is nothing non-compliant about using information that's in the public domain. Merck is just no longer interested in this model. Blind obedience to McDonald's-type promotional formulae is preferred over thoughtful fact-driven useful-to-the-physician sales methods. It's cheaper and predictable. And predictably, it will be supplanted by the internet and delivery services.

 

[Anonymous]

You actually made my day. I am laughing because this is so damn descriptive. What a joke. Hey, Merck, keep those trust and value scores coming! I want to know when Merck is really serious about being a drug company again. I will know it when they get rid of at least 1/2 the middle managers and useless field management. Why do we have a totally fragmented sales model? My value came from having deep clinical discussions. Anything published and peer reviewed was fair game. Then I could go to pharmacy and talk about savings with various contracts or buy/prescribing patterns. Forget that now. My hands are so tied by compliance there is NO selling. I can go discuss something but no doctor anymore is going to listen to a close. If you do that, they will simply agree and blow you off. Your boss is an ignorant ass. My heart goes out to you. But don't feel too badly, all this is coming to an end in probably less than five years.

Being a GQ wannabe, my manager would show up like one and we would go to the ghetto to make sales calls. Here he is, in his glory, everything in place perfectly, hair glued at a certain angle, shoes polished, standing with me in a ghetto clinic, kids screaming and babies crying, and he tried to highlight the cost benefits of Januvia and Janumet to this physician. Then he said he wanted to leave and sit in the car because this ghetto clinic was too smelly and patients all seemed like they have not bathed for awhile. What a wimp.

 

[Anonymous]

this reminds me of a time that I, a forty plus year old woman took my younger, diversity manager to an inner city clinic where I had access to several physicians. I could see his discomfort on his face as we worked our way through the project to the clinic.

As I parked the car he turned to me and asked, "Do we have to go in here?"

I told him I was here every 2 weeks - and asked if he had a problem with it?

Of course he said no, we got out and I watched him furtively looking around as we made our way toward the clinic entrance.

It so happened that a Methadone Clinic was in the same building and we had to walk through the gauntlet of street people waiting for their legal fix - I did this every 2 weeks, no big deal. He broke out in a sweat, hesitated, walking further and further behind me! I thought (hoped) I was going to lose him.......

It was great!

 

[Anonymous]

Personal selling, i.e., selling with your own unique personality. Now it is forbidden and we must deliver the message in an exactly prescribed way or it's your ass. Physicians recognize a tenured Merck rep by his/her name, life history, family, etc. We were friends. Some even treated us as "colleagues" and confidants. Now they said all sales reps, including the newer ones from Merck, are like clones. They come and go. They all have big boobs, low-cut dresses, blonde hair and I can't no longer tell who is who. They don't care about me and so I don't give a shit about them either. They never ask me about my family and all they want is my business. Screw them. End of quote. Used to have a colleague that would show photos of his/her latest spending (toys, renovations, trips) as a door opener with the medical assistants. I never understand it. Some of the stuff being shared are more than what that MA makes in a year. Is that really the way to bond with the staff by telling them how well you are financially? What happen to the old saying to dress down a little bit as a sales rep?

 

[Anonymous]

this reminds me of a time that I, a forty plus year old woman took my younger, diversity manager to an inner city clinic where I had access to several physicians. I could see his discomfort on his face as we worked our way through the project to the clinic.

As I parked the car he turned to me and asked, "Do we have to go in here?"

I told him I was here every 2 weeks - and asked if he had a problem with it?

Of course he said no, we got out and I watched him furtively looking around as we made our way toward the clinic entrance.

It so happened that a Methadone Clinic was in the same building and we had to walk through the gauntlet of street people waiting for their legal fix - I did this every 2 weeks, no big deal. He broke out in a sweat, hesitated, walking further and further behind me! I thought (hoped) I was going to lose him.......

It was great!

Great story. I think about a manager I had that was uncomfortable in just "regular" clinic settings. Since she refused to participate in product discussions, usually standing with her computer open to discourage interaction,never wore a name tag or even a buisness suit, I think she was actually scared to death of doctors. I never introduced her, she was asked to leave many times because she was in the way. merck should really train these new managers on how to conduct a field visit,merck just assumes they know but many don't know how to interact with an office. I think many of these managers don't really know what we do.

 

[Anonymous]

"Flooding the sales force with college grads transformed the rich corporate culture of the sales force over night into one big frat/sorority party. Many of these 'pups" made DM and higher nearly overnight."

Sad joke that is still happening. Some of these all grown up managers still frat/sorority kids. Its a big fat joke, pup managers coaching 20 year reps who could write the manual on selling, coaching and managing.

Ha. This is so true. I ended up with a younger, female manager (you know the type...alpha female, ALL about work, overly driven; a man in a women's body basically), who ended up putting ME - a highly tenured rep with a very good work history - on PIP, and I had GREAT numbers at the time! Funny thing is, I helped train this dipshit when she came on board with the company. I stayed in sales b/c I enjoyed it at the time, and never wanted to go into management, but her goal had been to become one of the youngest DMs in the company.
Comical how these people think they can "coach" reps who have more experience in their pinky toe than they have in their whole corporate-climbing, know-nothing, pharma cardboard cutout bodies. Truly sad.

 

[Anonymous]

Ha. This is so true. I ended up with a younger, female manager (you know the type...alpha female, ALL about work, overly driven; a man in a women's body basically), who ended up putting ME - a highly tenured rep with a very good work history - on PIP, and I had GREAT numbers at the time! Funny thing is, I helped train this dipshit when she came on board with the company. I stayed in sales b/c I enjoyed it at the time, and never wanted to go into management, but her goal had been to become one of the youngest DMs in the company.
Comical how these people think they can "coach" reps who have more experience in their pinky toe than they have in their whole corporate-climbing, know-nothing, pharma cardboard cutout bodies. Truly sad.

So did you manage to survive this young female fraud of a manager or was she successful in getting your ass PIP'd out of the company? We've lost so many good people because of the latter. In any case, I hope you're enjoying your life which is much more important than anything Merck.

 

[Anonymous]

So did you manage to survive this young female fraud of a manager or was she successful in getting your ass PIP'd out of the company? We've lost so many good people because of the latter. In any case, I hope you're enjoying your life which is much more important than anything Merck.

I'm gone; she succeeded. BUT, I am happy; it was definitely for the best.
Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

(ex)merck veteran here. Has it really come to this? Total advesarial relationship between management and sales staff? Totally paralyzes progress. What disconnect. The physician (should) view the rep as an asset to help (s)he treat patients. The doc is not there to help merck sell product. Merck has totally lost sight of the reps mission. George Mercks words are as true now as when they were first written.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I do not have the sense that doctors, nurses or pharmacists want to look to us "reps" for value, advice, teaching or much of anything else. Whatever we are doing or have done in the past, the disconnect between pharma and her customers might as well be the GC. So, if customers do not want to do business with pharma reps, wouldn't you think Merck would come up with another way to be successful? Yet, we keep doing the same thing and thinking our customers will like us better. Well, they don't. I would love to know what 100 of the same doctors return that T&V scorecard. People are weird, if you ask them about what drug company comes to mind, it will Merck because of how many annoying reps and managers are still out there, how often Merck is in the news and just the volumn of products produced and history. No doctor that I can think of is going to care about a scorecard to fill out for fifty bucks or whatever Merck offers unless they are already one of our supporters.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I do not have the sense that doctors, nurses or pharmacists want to look to us "reps" for value, advice, teaching or much of anything else. Whatever we are doing or have done in the past, the disconnect between pharma and her customers might as well be the GC. So, if customers do not want to do business with pharma reps, wouldn't you think Merck would come up with another way to be successful? Yet, we keep doing the same thing and thinking our customers will like us better. Well, they don't. I would love to know what 100 of the same doctors return that T&V scorecard. People are weird, if you ask them about what drug company comes to mind, it will Merck because of how many annoying reps and managers are still out there, how often Merck is in the news and just the volumn of products produced and history. No doctor that I can think of is going to care about a scorecard to fill out for fifty bucks or whatever Merck offers unless they are already one of our supporters.

I don't know if you are new with Merck or have less than 10 years (still new). One of the reasons for the negative image of Merck was we bought Medco, the largest PBM company then. The dumb ass at HQ decided to rename it Merck Medco and they were ruthless in faxing, and calling physicians on behalf of employers to change RXs to preferred brands. Soon the physicians and staff saw us the Merck reps the same as those pesky Merck (they always forgot the Medco part) people that terrorize them. Your local pharmacists, especially the independent ones, lost business and some closed shop because Medco won many contracts and their customers mailed their RXs to this out-of-town outfit called Merck Medco.

The other problem is how to sell. We used to sell to a pharmacist the reason in stocking a new product is because it is a Merck product (usually sell well, no inventory problem), generous credit term, benefits of the product, and how we the Merck reps will move the product because of our past ability and reputation. Now the newer reps just ask them to stock a product without the rest of the selling. If you are a pharmacist that have been around, got burned by Merck Medco, sold your business, or closed shop and became a CVS pharmacist, and this Ken or Barbie does not want to know you but want you to stock a product....do you really give a f**k?