What to expect with Forest

Quote

Anonymous

Guest
The job market for a rep is tough...that being said, can I please have "real" answers and not just jabs at the company or me?

I have 12 years exp. and have been on a contract for a while. I am applying for positions with Forest and wondering what the base pay is. I have heard that Forest still pays a low base salary...how low is it? Is it negotiable at all? I need a ceratin base to jump ship from where I am now.

What is the atmosphere like these days? Loads of pressure? Territory size? How many filed rides/month with your manager?

Thanks for your help.
 






Anonymous said:
The job market for a rep is tough...that being said, can I please have "real" answers and not just jabs at the company or me?

I have 12 years exp. and have been on a contract for a while. I am applying for positions with Forest and wondering what the base pay is. I have heard that Forest still pays a low base salary...how low is it? Is it negotiable at all? I need a ceratin base to jump ship from where I am now.

What is the atmosphere like these days? Loads of pressure? Territory size? How many filed rides/month with your manager?

Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

stay away-go back to the disney store or whatever mall "hell" job they found you!
 












52k base, territory size varies on geography, tons of pressure and micromanagement, too many reps per territory. Better stay where youre at or get out of the interest all together.
 






Minimum montly ride alongs because managers have nothing to do since their realignment. No matter how you are doing you suck, "your p club rankings from six months ago are not high and I cannot score you based off of today's numbers.". Fast forward six months" your p club rankings and current rankings are good but you are trending down in your nrx's so your field evaluation will reflect it as a 2.5. I love field rides everday I think about the next couple days of hell when I have shithead beside me explaining to me all day why I stink. Hooray for me.
 






Anonymous said:
Minimum montly ride alongs because managers have nothing to do since their realignment. No matter how you are doing you suck, "your p club rankings from six months ago are not high and I cannot score you based off of today's numbers.". Fast forward six months" your p club rankings and current rankings are good but you are trending down in your nrx's so your field evaluation will reflect it as a 2.5. I love field rides everday I think about the next couple days of hell when I have shithead beside me explaining to me all day why I stink. Hooray for me.
Click to expand...

This is very true! Of course, a lot of it depends on the specific RD, DM, region. But overall the culture at Forest is not a good one anymore.
 






If you don't mind making less money than most and having an a-hole manager, then you can deal with it.

As previous poster said though, prepare for plenty of "Catch 22" situations. If you're doing really well now, the mgr will point out that this is "not quite long enough to be a trend" and if you take a momentary dip, "it is very troubling." Unless you waltz into a perennial P-Club territory (doubt it), then prepare for very high pressure sales.

As per the salary, it is pretty much non-negotiable (starting at ~52k) but i have heard of a FEW getting that bumped up. It needs ABD approval though, so unlikely.
 






Anonymous said:
Minimum montly ride alongs because managers have nothing to do since their realignment. No matter how you are doing you suck, "your p club rankings from six months ago are not high and I cannot score you based off of today's numbers.". Fast forward six months" your p club rankings and current rankings are good but you are trending down in your nrx's so your field evaluation will reflect it as a 2.5. I love field rides everday I think about the next couple days of hell when I have shithead beside me explaining to me all day why I stink. Hooray for me.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what you should expect. This couldn't be more true.
 






Anonymous said:
The job market for a rep is tough...that being said, can I please have "real" answers and not just jabs at the company or me?

I have 12 years exp. and have been on a contract for a while. I am applying for positions with Forest and wondering what the base pay is. I have heard that Forest still pays a low base salary...how low is it? Is it negotiable at all? I need a ceratin base to jump ship from where I am now.

What is the atmosphere like these days? Loads of pressure? Territory size? How many filed rides/month with your manager?

Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

An example of what you may face on a typical ride along...this actually happened to me.

You pull into the office and tell your mgr. your action plan. You pre-call plan and even look up your notes from your last call in the office and they are good notes. You mgr. says it sounds like a great plan. There are 3 docs in the office...all 3 A targets for you. You go in and not only nail your action plan, but get comittments from all 3 docs to try Savella in the next week. You use antiquated methods such as closing the call 5 times, and reminding the doctor multiple times of what you just told him, just in a different way each time. You do this because your mgr. says he want you to. You have a great relationship in the office and so you know they'll forgive you for the agressiveness because your mgr. is with you. You feel great. The docs love you and say good things about you to your mgr. You go out to your car and the first thing out of the mgr.'s mouth is..."So how do you think that call went?" You realize you're in dangerous waters here, but since you know you nailed it you say you think it went well and you're glad that the docs gave comittments. Your mgr. however says..."It's too bad you didn't take a sample and put it in his coat pocket. I would have liked to have seen you do that. Then, later in the day he would have reached in that pocket for something and seen the sample and remembered to write prescribe it." Then he marks you down on your eval because you didn't do this and encourages you to do it in the next office. True story. If you want to be treated like a total idiot and asked to do things that would piss any doctor off, then yes, come aboard...it's great here at Forest!!!
 






Anonymous said:
An example of what you may face on a typical ride along...this actually happened to me.

You pull into the office and tell your mgr. your action plan. You pre-call plan and even look up your notes from your last call in the office and they are good notes. You mgr. says it sounds like a great plan. There are 3 docs in the office...all 3 A targets for you. You go in and not only nail your action plan, but get comittments from all 3 docs to try Savella in the next week. You use antiquated methods such as closing the call 5 times, and reminding the doctor multiple times of what you just told him, just in a different way each time. You do this because your mgr. says he want you to. You have a great relationship in the office and so you know they'll forgive you for the agressiveness because your mgr. is with you. You feel great. The docs love you and say good things about you to your mgr. You go out to your car and the first thing out of the mgr.'s mouth is..."So how do you think that call went?" You realize you're in dangerous waters here, but since you know you nailed it you say you think it went well and you're glad that the docs gave comittments. Your mgr. however says..."It's too bad you didn't take a sample and put it in his coat pocket. I would have liked to have seen you do that. Then, later in the day he would have reached in that pocket for something and seen the sample and remembered to write prescribe it." Then he marks you down on your eval because you didn't do this and encourages you to do it in the next office. True story. If you want to be treated like a total idiot and asked to do things that would piss any doctor off, then yes, come aboard...it's great here at Forest!!!
Click to expand...

This is so true ... and hilarious!! This is what happens when people with 22 months experience try to manage and teach.
 






Or how about getting into a heated debate with a dr because they aren't writing, only because your DM pushed you to. You get in the car, just waiting to hear what she has to say-NOTHING! No coaching! Instead, she tells you to do a better job on SELLING managed care. True story! Again, a DM who only had maybe 12 months in the field as a territory rep and maybe 6 months as an RST. Awesome.
 






Anonymous said:
Or how about getting into a heated debate with a dr because they aren't writing, only because your DM pushed you to. You get in the car, just waiting to hear what she has to say-NOTHING! No coaching! Instead, she tells you to do a better job on SELLING managed care. True story! Again, a DM who only had maybe 12 months in the field as a territory rep and maybe 6 months as an RST. Awesome.
Click to expand...

don't worry too much-this job is soon to disappear, pharma is done-time to create a new future
 






Wow. I'm a rep for another company and am blown away by those details. I have a couple friends with Forest and one of them told me a couple of years ago that he would get physically ill with anxiety when it was time to ride with his manager. And he is a great rep. All of the Forest reps around here are top notch, great guys. I hope it's better for them these days.

I really feel for you who have to put with that crap. Selling to PC docs never has and never will be a true hard sell type of job. Because there is no way any rep would ever keep up the hard sell tactics on days he/she is not with micromanager. Just like the previous poster said - he spends the rest of the month cleaning up the mess his manager made. And you know what else? This hard sell crap is one of the biggest reasons more and more offices are no-see. I have a couple offices that don't let managers back - thanks to bozo's like the one's mentioned.

And of course, it's not just Forest managers, there are many out there who do this. Luckily, however, I haven't had been subjected to it. I've been spoiled rotten with managers who get it and don't push stupid selling tactics. Treat the doc with respect, sell the benefits (throw in fair balance when manager is with you) and simply ask for the business. It's worked for me for the last 10 years.

Having said all that - it's really not the managers - it's their managers and so on. This type of corporate culture comes from the top down. Just imagine the kind of pressure all the manager's are under. It's all just one big pressure cooker!

But hey - isn't it true that Forest has NEVER had layoffs? That's very impressive. So if you can put up with the manager once a month and keep your job - not a bad trade-off in this economy.
 






Anonymous said:
Wow. I'm a rep for another company and am blown away by those details. I have a couple friends with Forest and one of them told me a couple of years ago that he would get physically ill with anxiety when it was time to ride with his manager. And he is a great rep. All of the Forest reps around here are top notch, great guys. I hope it's better for them these days.

I really feel for you who have to put with that crap. Selling to PC docs never has and never will be a true hard sell type of job. Because there is no way any rep would ever keep up the hard sell tactics on days he/she is not with micromanager. Just like the previous poster said - he spends the rest of the month cleaning up the mess his manager made. And you know what else? This hard sell crap is one of the biggest reasons more and more offices are no-see. I have a couple offices that don't let managers back - thanks to bozo's like the one's mentioned.

And of course, it's not just Forest managers, there are many out there who do this. Luckily, however, I haven't had been subjected to it. I've been spoiled rotten with managers who get it and don't push stupid selling tactics. Treat the doc with respect, sell the benefits (throw in fair balance when manager is with you) and simply ask for the business. It's worked for me for the last 10 years.

Having said all that - it's really not the managers - it's their managers and so on. This type of corporate culture comes from the top down. Just imagine the kind of pressure all the manager's are under. It's all just one big pressure cooker!

But hey - isn't it true that Forest has NEVER had layoffs? That's very impressive. So if you can put up with the manager once a month and keep your job - not a bad trade-off in this economy.
Click to expand...

eat sawdust rocky-take a walk!
 






Most reps are completely burnt out right now with the micromanaging in this industry. Forest may be the worst at this but a lot of companies do this as well. Unfortunately, we as reps don't have a lot of control over the useless tracking spreadsheets and other things management makes us do. But there is one thing that we can do to limit some of the micro-managing. Some of our offices have already started putting the "No Managers" signs up and I think that if we asked our physicians to do more of this they would. Our managers wouldn't be able to come in to the offices anymore and make fools of us. Basically, their ride alongs would become pointless. I know I am completely sick of the ride alongs every month where I am asked how I felt that call went afterwards and how am I going to hold this doctor accountable to write more of our product. And we all know our doctors would do this for us because they like us better than management and they complain about this stuff already as it is.
 






Anonymous said:
Most reps are completely burnt out right now with the micromanaging in this industry. Forest may be the worst at this but a lot of companies do this as well. Unfortunately, we as reps don't have a lot of control over the useless tracking spreadsheets and other things management makes us do. But there is one thing that we can do to limit some of the micro-managing. Some of our offices have already started putting the "No Managers" signs up and I think that if we asked our physicians to do more of this they would. Our managers wouldn't be able to come in to the offices anymore and make fools of us. Basically, their ride alongs would become pointless. I know I am completely sick of the ride alongs every month where I am asked how I felt that call went afterwards and how am I going to hold this doctor accountable to write more of our product. And we all know our doctors would do this for us because they like us better than management and they complain about this stuff already as it is.
Click to expand...

another dumb rep trying to outthink the dm's won't work -we know all the lazy rep tricks!
 
























Anonymous said:
You are WRONG. In the past most of the reps targeted were lazy slackers, not anymore. If you don't believe this is happening to hardworking skilled reps you are a damn fool.
Click to expand...

Actually, this has been going on for years, just not as swiftly as it has been now...and not necessarily to the "lazy" reps as you say. There have been outstanding reps with great numbers who for some reason or another intimidates their fat ass smelly boss, tries to act like a professional, and still gets targeted.
 






Top Bottom
Back
Quote