John Bult

Pharmaceutical Sales: making the most out of Post Grad meetings

I have been in the field of pharmaceutical sales for many years, and over time I have picked up some invaluable techniques and tricks of the trade. This article stems from an experience from my first few weeks in the job. Desperate to make an impression, I thought I would attempt to sponsor a post graduate meeting. It is an excellent idea if you pull it off, but my first expensive was an expensive waste of time.

For those who are not sure exactly what a post graduate meeting is, it is an event where GPs attend, in which they top-up their medical knowledge. As time goes by, medicine advances and GPs need to be kept in the loophole, so they can offer the best advice to patients. The most common way for GPs to do this is to use the post graduate centre in their local hospital, during their lunch hour. The opportunistic pharmaceutical sales rep will see this as a perfect opportunity to get wide exposure of their products in a short period of time.

What I did was to set up a stand for my firm, with a host of branded freebies like pens, pads of paper, key rings and mugs. I left the meal tickets at the front of the display for the GPs to collect. What actually happened on the day was that the majority of doctors were as per usual running late, so they simply said ‘hello’, picked up a meal ticket and a stash of gifts and walked off to get their lunch. After quarter of an hour I was left standing on my own at an empty stand, wondering what had gone wrong!

After experiencing a good few more of these post graduate meetings, I have compiled 4 basic principles for any young aspiring pharmaceutical sales rep to follow:

• Keep their meal tickets in your pocket, or at least out of sight. If they want to eat, they're going to have to talk to you! Most of them understand that you're not parting with money for nothing. Once they have to engage with you for their dinner, it's difficult for them to avoid a discussion about your products.

• Save a registration form of those who have had their meal ticket. Simply have 3 columns, one for name, one for surgery name, and one for most convenient time to visit. This is always a worthwhile way of generating new customers, especially those GPs who are traditionally difficult to see.

• Put only one item of your goodies on display with a sign, saying 'display only, please ask', keep the rest in a box, particularly if you have something good really posh pens! This avoids 10 junior doctors cleaning you out whilst you chat to a GP but again encourages them to talk to you.

• Target specific customers you wish to see on each occasion and have something 'specific' you wish to show them (like some new evidence or a relevant clinical paper). Once again this can be a excellent way to target difficult doctors, and if you are target just a few key people specifically, you are more likely to be successful.

To conclude, it always pays off for pharmaceutical sales reps keep their ‘sales head’ on at all times during post graduate meetings. You have a fairly unique opportunity to meet a large amount of potential customers in a relatively short space of time. Make it worth your while.

Article Tags: Post Graduate, Pharmaceutical Sales

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