Only 10-20% of my calls in my pharma career were ever real calls.

I would say that in my last year before I left a 3rd to half of my calls were flaky. Some days more some days less.

At first i would call the office to make sure the doc was in that day. Then i stopped this practice because i stopped caring.

My manager told us he/she watched our activity times and that we were not allowed to out in calls retroactively after 5 o'clock.

Found a work around to that. Do what u gotta do, right Matthew? Right Jen?

 

I was on the sales side (if you can call it that) for 20 years and I'll never forget sitting down with my fat ass manager inside a hotel lobby to go over numbers and he started attacking me for not calling on this doc and that doc. He noticed my 4 other partners were calling on them and he was pissed! I had no idea what to say. I was brand new and didn't know I was supposed to lie all day!

Well, I never let that happen again and spent the rest of my sales career in constant turmoil. I hated lying but the alternative was getting fired. Work with's made me panic because I was sure I'd get "found out".

For the people that want to get nasty....I went to work every day. If I had budget, I did a lunch with an office M-F. I tried and tried to make real calls, but to no avail. I did everything I could to do my job well, but as the years went by, more offices closed to reps and my required calls per day never changed.

I finally got out of sales for good and away from Sanofi as well. I've never been happier. No lies, no anxiety and no idiot managers yelling at me because actually told the truth. I can't imagine ever going back info pharma sales. I'd rather clean toilets.

 

You're such a total liar!!! Define a call, you idiot. A call is when you actually have a sales discussion with an HCP with efficacy, dosing, etc... Just because you entered the call info your iPad doesn't mean is was a real call. Just because the doc's car was in the parking lot, doesn't mean you "called" on them.

There's NO way you've never faked a call. NO WAY!!!

 

Yeah I don’t know how you’ve never faked a call, not even once. Sanofi has done nothing but screw me over since I got here. And yes I am looking for other jobs this week. I’ve said this before, the more Sanofi fucks me, the more I will fuck them. I sure hope someone is watching my calls, bc I will be doing applications next week here in my office. Fuck you Sanodi, catch me if you can!

 

Still going strong - I probably have to fudge numbers on about 50-60% of calls. I have survived layoff after layoff. That just goes to show how much of a joke this job is.

 

Some markets have great access. Some don’t. That has nothing to do with ability but management wants to see equal results in metrics. Give them what they ask for.

 

I remember working in PC selling Praluent. I never made more than 2 calls a day. I didn’t need to because I got credit for mid levels rxs from cardiologist offices. Hell, I made good bonus too. Life was good. Selling Praluent was fun. What a company!

 

I made about 2 real calls per day. The rest of the time was spent listening to Rush Limbaugh, and sleeping in my car next to city parks, wasting time until I had to be on the next productive conference call at 4:30PM.

 

We in vaccine get shit pay but also easy job. I work in a high VFC area and just talk to staff all day! Don’t even see HCPs most of the time. Here’s your Starbucks, now see ya!

 

So right!
Much of the demise of the sales position
has been caused by the “de-professionalism of reps. 25-30 yrs ago, the minimum requirements for most companies was a degree, preferably a science degree, and at least 3-5 yrs. of work experience. We were trained to be consultant salespeople. We gained the respect of doctors by knowing the disease states our drugs treated as well as the doctors. We knew the competitive drugs as well as our own, and most importantly, we were much more ethical, which gained the trust of our customers.
Things started to rapidly deteriorate when reps were hired right out of college, immature kids who saw a decent salary, a car, and expense account to play on the company dime. They became visitors who brought lunches and marketing crap, sound bites, a lot of glitz, but no actual information /value for drs.to treat their patients. They get their signatures for the day and go home. The professionalism disappeared, and the respect from doctors went with it.

 

In a Covid world if you are not making up at minimum 50% of your daily sales calls you simply aren't trying hard enough!